


Bluegreen Summer

by miss_fictions



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Depression, M/M, Mentions of Death, Yaoi, domestic abuse, ereri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-02-25 08:51:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 30,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2615765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_fictions/pseuds/miss_fictions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren goes back to his parents’ house during summer break filled with doubts about his future. His first year at med school only showed him how he wasn't born for this occupation – even though following his parent’s professions had been something unquestionable in his life. Feeling lost, he applies for a temporary job at a convenience store, and there his path crosses with Levi’s, a guy one year older that will change completely the course of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! I was so anxious to start posting this story :3  
> I began writing it in July, but only now I felt confident enough to post it (and I only had actually time to post it now, since I was studying like crazy for a test earlier...)  
> I hope you enjoy it! It'll be 15 chapters long and I'll try posting every week.
> 
> Portuguese version: http://fanfiction.com.br/historia/563604/Verao_Verde-Azulado/capitulo/1/  
> Original version (yeah, I decided to try it as an original as well! if you know anyone who doesn't ship ereri but might like reading this story, I'd be happy if you shared it with them sz): http://www.jesschamber.com/2014/11/bluegreen-summer-chapter-01.html/

“Levi!” Ms. Zoe shouts as we enter the convenience store and we hear only a soft grunt in response. Then, she turns back to me. “Let me introduce you to someone.”

I step into Smile already feeling refreshed from the air conditioning, the weather is hell during summer in this frickin’ town. I follow as she walks towards the checkouts and I meet the source of that grunt a second ago; a guy around my age that was also working there. He quickly closes the sketchbook he was scribbling on before lifting his head to greet us.

“This is Eren. He’s going to work here during summer.” Ms. Zoe introduces me.

“I thought you were looking for a permanent worker.” Levi doesn't shift his glance towards me for even a second. Gosh, so cold.

“I am. But since I don’t have anyone yet, let’s give this guy a chance.” Ms. Zoe replies him impatiently. “He’s a college student.”

“Oh.” And then Levi finally turns his glance to me, softly removing his bangs that blocked his eyes. “What is a college student doing here?”

“Probably needing some extra bucks. Am I right?” Ms. Zoe turns her attention back to me, nudging me softly with her elbow.

“Y-Yeah, something like that.” I stutter. I didn't feel like explaining the whole thing right now.

“Well, so teach him how things work here, okay?” She turns back to Levi.

“Okay.” Levi sighs.

Not a minute later and Ms. Zoe was gone, leaving us alone. I stand awkwardly on my spot, not sure about what I should do, until I realize I’m still holding the uniform shirt she gave me and decide to dress it.

“Where’s the toilet?”

“Back door, and then the first door on the left.” Levi points to a door behind the checkouts.

I head straight there and quickly change into my new shirt, which looks slightly bigger than it should. When I come back, I find Levi bringing a wheel chair to the computer beside him. He didn't look this small while sitting.

“Do you know how to turn on a computer?” He asks, eyeing me. I gulp.

“Yeah.”

“Great, that’s all you need.”

He walks back to his computer and sits again, so I slowly step closer to the other computer and sit down on the chair.

“Sees that program on the desktop? Just open it and that’s it.”

I do as he says and a registry program pops open. It seemed simple at first sight, so I wouldn't have trouble with it.

“Why are you here, anyway?” Levi suddenly asks.

I still didn't know how to put it into words. I haven’t told anyone yet, and the explanation I had in mind didn't seem like one people would enjoy listening to.

Maybe I could give it a try with him.

“Have you ever felt so desperate to leave a situation that you started jumping to any opportunity that appeared?”

Levi turns to me, eyeing me with a nonchalant expression. “Maybe.”

“Well, uh, that’s pretty much it.” I sit back in my chair. “I just hope I won’t end falling.”

“You need to jump correctly.” He says, tilting his head.

“And how do we know we jumped correctly?”

“Guess we just wait and see.”

We fall in silence for a few seconds. Somehow I feel like he understood what I meant, even though it was confusing even to me.

“Which college are you into?” He turns back to his computer, moves his mouse to click on some stuff and opens solitaire.

“Uh, NYU.” I mumble, embarrassed.

He gives me a death glare. “Are you shitting me, you’re in NYU?”

“Yeah… Class of 2019, med school.” I smile awkwardly.

“Okay, now I’m sure you didn't jump correctly. Did you knock your head on your way here? Why would a med student decide to work at a convenience store in a shitty town?"

“Hey, I grew up here… I came to visit my parents.”

“Hm. That explains a bit.” He sighs. “But you’re still stupid. Why are you working here if you could find a job in New York? I bet any summer job there is better than here.”

“I’m just trying something new, ok? Stop judging.” I sigh as well.

“Something new? Isn't college new enough?”

“College isn't that glorious when you’re in there. Especially when you’re not sure you made the right choice.”

“Hm…” He nods. “So that’s your problem; you’re not enjoying med school?”

“Yeah… it was actually my parent’s choice; they’re both doctors.”

“Oh, the usual conflict. I guess every traditional middle class kid has to go through that.” He mumbles ironically.

“Uh, and what about you?”

“What about me?” He eyes me.

“Why are you here? I can see you hate this place.”

“If I had a choice I wouldn't be here, believe me.”

“Well, we always have a choice, I guess.”

He chuckles wryly then, like I said something pretty idiot. “Let’s not go there. How old are you?”

“Nineteen. You?”

“Twenty.”

“We’re not that distant. Why have I never seen you around? Where did you go to high school?”

“Abbey High.” He replies, and I pause for a few seconds.

Abbey High was the school everyone talked about because of its constant problems with students. Only the wrecked and addicts went there.

“Oh, I went to Maximilian High.” I try to sound normal.

“I had a clue.” He shrugs. “A guy that’s in med school now would only have gone there.”

“Well, I have to say that a punk boy like you could only have gone to Abbey High.” I tease.

“Yeah, I bet my eyeliner would give Maximilian’s principal a heart attack. Are they really all religious there?”

“Most of the staff, but not everyone. Is everyone at Abbey High an out of law?”

“Gosh, no.” Levi chuckles. “There were some crazy kids there that sold drugs and carried guns, but it wasn't everyone.”

“I hope you weren't one of them.” I fake fear.

“You shouldn't irritate me.” He blinks.

Later we go on about music and tv shows, avoiding the personal stuff since we were obviously from worlds apart and it could cause some misunderstandings. We had pretty much in common in everything else, though, so the conversation flows smoothly and I badly see the time passing. Some customers walk in and out, and Levi teaches me how to register their products and some other details from the checkout. We eat some frozen food from the store for lunch and, around five in the afternoon, the night shifters arrive to change places with us.

“Time flew.” I say, as Levi and I leave the store.

“It’s just because it was your first day, soon you’ll think this is a never ending nightmare.”

“Come on, it’s not that bad.” I shrug.

“Just give it a month and your opinion will change.” He sighs. “Well, I’m off now.”

“Okay, see ya tomorrow.”

Levi turns and starts walking down the street, the same direction I was going. I quickly grab my bike and reach him, giving him a startle.

“Want a ride?” I offer, cycling slowly besides him.

He freezes in his steps and eyes me intensely. I almost regret asking, since he looks so damn taken aback, but then he finally speaks. “No, thanks. I don’t trust bikes, anyway.”

“Come on, it’s safe.” I shrug and turn my body a little to show the carrier behind my seat. “My friends used to get rides with me back in High School.”

“I don’t know.” He eyes the bike, unsure.

“I live near West Park, where are you heading?”

“Uh…” He hesitates for a little. “I live a block from West Park.”

“Then come on. It’s quite a long walk.”

I stop my bike on his way, insisting, and he sighs.

“Okay, then. But go slow.”

I help him up and tell him to hold on me. He grabs the back of my shirt and I start cycling, slowly at first and later at my normal velocity.

“You okay back there?” I decide to ask, since he was too quiet.

“Yeah.” He answers quickly.

Just to tease him, I make a sharp curve in a street, making him throw his arms around me.

“You shithead, I told you to go slow!” He slaps my back. “Don’t ever do it again!”

I only chuckle with that. It’s funny seeing someone who looked so tough showing a weakness like that.

Even though he protested a lot, telling me to just drop him by the park, I still manage to take him to his house. We only bid goodbyes and he goes in, shooting a glance behind before closing the door.

Somehow I felt like I did make the correct jump.

I head home, lost in inner thoughts, and completely forget the fact that I shouldn't make any noise when I arrive. My mom quickly comes to meet me at the front door, crossing her arms. I gulp.

“So, you really got the job.” She sighs, disappointed. I should have taken off the uniform before coming home. “What do you exactly plan with this?”

“It’s just an experience, mom.” I shrug and pass by her to head to the kitchen.

“Well, if you wanted an experience, you could have asked us to find you a summer internship at the hospital.” She follows me, stopping by the kitchen’s entrance while I search the fridge.

“No way.” I sigh, grabbing a water bottle. “I want to try something different.”

“Then, well, you could have called your uncle and asked him for an internship at his Law Agency. Something that would make you grow, understand?”

“And why do you think working at that store wouldn't make me grow?”

She only sighs with my question, passing a hand by her forehead. I knew she thought I was making a jump behind.

“You better explain that to your father.” She says finally, before walking away.

Since I knew that talking to my dad was going to be hell, I grab some food from the cabinet and head upstairs to lock myself in my room. I wasn’t in the mood for talking to him this night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren finds out some stuff and has some problems at home...  
> Hope you enjoy this chapter :3

I leave to work through the back door to avoid meeting my parents, and right after I cycle a block away, my phone starts buzzing in my pocket. Thinking it probably was my mom noticing I left, I grab it lazily and frown at the caller’s ID.

“Mikasa?” I ask as I answer it.

“Eren!” Her voice sounds so loud on the phone I have to remove it slightly from my ear. “Why didn't you tell me you were here already?”

“Oh…” The truth is that I completely forgot. Everything happened in such a hurry since I came back to my parent’s house that I didn't have any time to think. “I’m sorry.”

“I met your mom at the market yesterday and she told me you arrived on Saturday. You’re a horrible person.” She sighs soundly.

“I just got distracted by some stuff in my head… But I’m really sorry; I was going to call you.”

“Hey, if you need to talk, I’m here for you.” She sounds worried, like I expected her to. Sometimes she acts more like a mother than a best friend. “You were very distant these last months. Did something happen at college?”

“Nothing, actually. Don’t worry, I’m just confused about my life choices.”

“I told you that med school wasn’t for you.” She clicks her tongue. “We should meet to talk about this and everything. It’s been a year, right? I have so much to tell you, and I also want to hear from you. Armin is also in town, he’d love to see you.”

“Yeah.” I shrug.

We fall in an awkward silence, like she was expecting me to say something, but I just can’t pronounce a word.

“Hey.” She suddenly says, bringing me back from my thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“Your mom told me, it’s ok. I’m not going to judge you.”

“About…?”

“Your summer job?” She chuckles.

“Oh.” I gasp. Well, thanks, mom. She made something easier. “Yeah, that.”

“It’s probably related to your confusion about your life choices, right?”

“Kind of. I actually don’t know the exact reason; I just wanted to try something different.”

“I understand.” Her gentle tone calms me a little. I guess I forgot why she’s my best friend; we know and understand each other better than anyone else. “You’re working at Shine, right?”

“Yeah… On the day I arrived, I overheard Ms. Zoe talking to my dad about looking for someone to the day shift, so I called her and said I wanted the job. She was very surprised, but luckily she accepted me.”

“Wow, you were quick.” She chuckles again. “And you started yesterday?”

“Yeah, I’m on my way there right now.”

“Hm.” She pauses for some seconds, like she was thinking. I was about to ask her if something was wrong when she starts talking again. “So, you met Levi?”

The mention of his name surprises me. “Yeah, he’s at the same shift as I am. Do you know him?”

“Sort of.” She says, mysterious. “Well, he’s actually my cousin.”

“What?” Since when Mikasa had a cousin I’ve never heard of? “How come I never met him?”

“We’re not close.” Her tone continues being mysterious. “I barely see him.”

“He seems cool, you should talk to him.”

“Yeah.” She says dismissively. “Well, I won’t make you late. Call me later so we can hang out sometime.”

“Sure.”

We bid short goodbyes – she also makes me promise that I’d call her – and I end the call. I missed talking to Mikasa and regret being so distant these past months. Right after I moved to college, we skyped every night and told each other about everything that was going on. With time, though, we became busier and busier until our conversation was just a couple of _hi_ on facebook. Maybe if I told her my insecurities about med school earlier I wouldn’t be feeling this lost now.

I grab my bike and continue my way to Shine. Once I get there, I find Levi exactly the same way he was yesterday, and once again he closes his sketchbook quickly before greeting me.

“You’re late on your second day.” He mumbles darkly.

“It’s just five minutes.” I chuckle awkwardly, walking towards the checkout beside him.

“Five minutes can be a lot of time.” He sighs. “I’ll let it pass this time, but I hope you don’t continue like this.”

“Don’t worry.”

While I turn on the computer, I remember my newest discovery and turn back to him. Now analyzing carefully, his blue eyes and his black hair are very similar to Mikasa’s.

“What?” He frowns with my stare.

“I found out you’re my best friend’s cousin.” I grin, rolling the chair for me to sit.

“Huh?” He frowns even deeper.

“Gosh, you really aren’t close.” I sigh. “Mikasa.”

“Ah, her.” He rolls his eyes and turns back to his computer. “Yeah, we aren’t close.”

“Did you two have an argument or something like that?”

“Not at all. I just never talked to her.”

There was something fishy about this, but I wouldn’t keep asking. He didn’t seem very open to talk about this subject.

“So, how are you?” I try to chat, since the silence was boring.

“Ugh.” He passes a hand by his forehead. “Please, I thought you weren’t a person who makes small talk.”

“Come on, I just asked how you are.” I chuckle. “I’m trying to be nice.”

“That’s small talk. And I hate small talk.”

“Geez, okay. What should I ask, then?”

“Interesting things, not anythings.”

I pause and think about something, but there wasn’t really anything I wanted to ask him. I just wanted to talk about anything.

And like this we fall in a morbid silence. Levi starts playing solitaire again on his computer and I stare at my screen. Some people walk in, I help a customer finding toothpaste and things get pretty boring after an hour.

Okay, maybe working here wouldn’t be that fun as I imagined.

“What did you do when you were here alone?” I ask him, sighing.

“I didn’t stay here alone much time… the girl that was in your place left last week.”

“Oh.” I nod. “I guess I was lucky, then.”

“If you consider this as luck.” He shrugs.

“It’s always this slow?”

“Most of the time, yeah.”

“Then what did you two do?”

“Are you bored already?” He chuckles.

“No, it’s just…” I stutter. “I’m not bored, I’m just wondering.”

“You can be honest, this is boring.” He shakes his head. “Well, we played some online games, then she whined about her boyfriend to me… and asked about her prom dress about a million times…”

“That seems like a great company.” I say ironically.

“She wasn’t bad at all, I just happened to commit the mistake of telling her I was gay and she happened to be one of those people who think gay men know everything about fashion and relationships.”

“Oh.” I pause with all that information. Should I say something about that? “You don’t look gay.”

“Do gay people look different?” He eyes me, frowning lightly. “Should I wear a pink bow over my head or something?”

“No, I didn’t mean it that way.” I gulp nervously. “Sorry if I offended you.”

“It’s okay, you’re cool.” He smiles with the corner of his lips. “Just don’t tell Hanji. I’m okay with people our age knowing, but I’m not ready to deal with adults yet.”

“Don’t worry.” I shrug. “Well, which online game did you play?”

Then he tells me to roll my chair closer and goes to this website that has a bunch of mini games, and some of them were for two players. We share his keyboard and play a fighting one, then a puzzle one – we actually get stuck in a level for over an hour – and then we decide to put some music on and continue playing; only stopping when customers came in.

The afternoon passes pretty quickly after that.

Once our shift ends, we step outside and I offer him a ride again. He hesitates a bit before accepting, and I sense he doesn’t relax behind me.

“Why are you so afraid of bikes?” I decide to ask.

“I fell off one when I was trying to learn how to ride it, guess I got a trauma.”

“Well, but you couldn’t have stopped just because you fell one time…”

“Okay, but I did. And I still don’t like bikes.”

“So you don’t know how to ride one?”

“Nope.” He says.

Then I stop the bike abruptly, making he even grip my shirt harder.

“What’s wrong?”

“You can’t not know how to ride a bike!” I say. “Come on, change places with me.”

“What?”

“I’m going to teach you.”

“I don’t want to learn!” He yells. “Just continue, Eren.”

“But—“

“Just continue before I leave this bike and won’t ever get a ride with you again!” He threatens.

I gulp dryly, afraid of his words, and continue cycling.

“One day I’ll teach you.” I mumble.

“Yeah, right.”

I take him to his front door again, ignoring his protests, and watch as he gets in. I don’t know why I did that, but I decide to not think deeply about it and cycle home.

Once I get there, I head to the kitchen and find my father making dinner with my mom there. Both looked happy, singing a song that was playing on the radio, and my presence completely breaks their state.

“Sorry.” I say as both stare at me on the door. “I’m just going to my room.”

“Eren, wait.” My dad calls, turning off the radio. “You can’t avoid me forever, come here.”

Sighing, I walk into the kitchen and sit on a chair by the table. Dad sits on the other side while my mom watches the oven.

“Do you need any help?” He asks, worried.

“No, dad.” I sigh again.

“We can help if you need something. Don’t run away from us like this.”

“I’m not running away from you.”

“Then why were you avoiding me?”

“Because I know you don’t like the idea of me working at the store! And the last thing I need to hear is a lecture from you.”

“But Eren, why are you working there?” My mom interferes. “You have so many options, why wasting your time working at a store?”

“We could help you finding something more interesting to do, summer break has just begun. You can—“

“No, no!” I shake my head. “I’m fine, okay? I’m just trying something different, and I’m enjoying working there!”

“You’re wasting your potential, Eren.” My dad deadpans. “Working there won’t add you anything.”

“Maybe for you it won’t, but for me it will.” I stand up, done. I didn’t need to hear any more of this. “I’m going to my room.”

“Eren…”

I don’t allow them to say anything else and walk to my room upstairs.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some more development of their relationship :3  
> Hope you like this chapter!

I try getting to work on time the next day, so I leave around fifteen minutes earlier than the days before. And so I arrive there feeling proud of myself, but when I walk in the store, I find Levi already on the checkout. Scribbling something in his sketchbook, of course.

“Gosh, you’re here already?” I sigh in frustration.

“I need to open the store, so I’m always early.” He doesn’t even shift his glance to me.

“I thought it was Ms. Zoe who opened it… But anyway, you still opened it earlier than you should.” I walk to the checkouts and sit on the chair besides him. He closes his sketchbook before I could take a glance in what he was doing. “It’s supposed to open at nine.”

“Well, sorry for wanting to get here as soon as I can because I can’t stand being home.” He sighs, and his words make me blush.

“S-Sorry, I didn’t mean to be an ass.” I mumble.

“I know you didn’t. I’m just telling you.”

I turn my computer on, and as I wait for it to load, I think about what I should say next. “So you have problems at home as well?”

“Kinda.” He shrugs.

“I know how that is.” I sigh. “My parents don’t ever leave my feet.”

“Hm.” He nods, uninterested, but I continue anyway.

“Yesterday at night they gave me some crap about working here and it sucked. Really, is it so hard to allow me to just make my own decisions?”

“Maybe they wouldn’t be worrying if you made them right.” He mumbles.

“Come on, don’t give me that as well."

“I’m just being honest. I’d never be here if I were in your shoes, you know that.”

“Just frickin’ leave, then. Gosh, why continue hating this place so much when you can simply run away?”

“I wish it was that simple.”

“You can always figure a way.”

“Just shut up Eren.” He mumbles tiredly and annoyed. It surprises me. “You know nothing.”

I get a little uncomfortable after that, like I just stepped on a landmine and talked way too much before thinking.

We stay in silence for a while, some people walk in and out. When I think the ice melted already, I decide to talk about anything.  But I didn’t have an anything to talk about, so I look to him and find him secretly sketching something.

“What are you always scribbling in that sketchbook?” I ask, curious.

“Just some stuff.” He mumbles.

“Can I see it?”

“No.”

His short answer makes me pout. “That was rude.”

“I wasn’t rude; I was just telling you that I don’t want you to see.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

Rolling my eyes, I turn my attention back to the computer and decide to play solitaire instead of chatting with him. Then someone walks into the store and comes straight to our checkouts.

“Can I help you?” Levi asks before I could.

“Yes, do you have mint flavored cigarettes?”

“Mint…” Levi stands up and checks the packs of cigarettes over the counter. “Just wait a second, a box arrived yesterday and I’m sure it had mint flavored.”

“No problem.”

Levi walks to the back door and disappears in there. I smile politely to the client, until I notice his sketchbook is still there over the counter. I glance to the door quickly before grabbing it and opening it right on the last page he was scribbling on.

I hope the client didn’t notice my surprised expression, because I surely almost fell off my chair. It had an amazing drawing of a person there. And the person was me.

“Sorry for the wait, there are a lot of boxes on the stock.” Levi suddenly comes back, so I quickly close his sketchbook.

He walks back to his checkout and continues with the client, still not noticing his sketchbook has disappeared. After the transaction finishes and the person leaves, he sits back on his chair. I watch as he looks to the counter, looks around, and then looks at me, with his sketchbook in my hand.

“You shithead!” He jumps on me, trying to get it back, and I stretch up my arm to keep him from reaching. “Give it back to me!”

“Calm down!” I ask.

“Don’t you have any respect for other people’s privacy?” He hisses, still trying to reach it. “I’m serious, give it back now!”

“Okay, okay, alright! Just calm down before I do it!”

Pissed, he sits back on his chair, and I carefully give his sketchbook back.

“I thought you were a decent person but you only keep showing yourself as an asshole.” He grumbles, putting his sketchbook inside a drawer.

“Sorry.” I ask. “But please don’t throw that drawing away.”

He turns back to me with a desperate expression and stares in my eyes, until he suddenly softens up. “Did you see that?” He asks as if it’s nothing much.

“Y-Yeah.”

“Did you see anything else?”

I wanted to make a joke, but he sounded so serious that I give up. “No, just that.”

He remains in silence for a few seconds, still with an angry expression. “You better be telling the truth.”

“I am, I’m serious.” I say, trying to sound as much as truthful as I can.

He nods softly and bites his lower lip, staring at his computer screen.

“Can I ask you something?” I murmur softly.

“Go ahead.”

“Why were you drawing me?”

He doesn’t answer right away, probably thinking on the best answer. “Your eyes are interesting. The green, you know.”

Before I could ask him why he didn’t draw only my eyes then, Ms. Zoe suddenly comes into the store, walking towards us.

“So, Grumpy, is it ok for you this weekend?” She asks him, and I feel lost.

“Oh, yeah.” He nods. “I was actually going to tell you that I’ll need some help.”

“I imagined… I mean, look at the size of that wall compared to you, you’d take a whole year.” Ms. Zoe chuckles, but Levi doesn’t chuckle with her, so she clears her throat before continuing. “Anyway, you can call someone you’d feel ok working with.”

Then Levi turns to me, lifting an eyebrow. “Not that I feel okay working with you, but are you available this weekend?”

“Uh…” I frown. “What exactly are we talking about?”

“We need to paint the outside of the store, the old painting is peeling.” Ms. Zoe explains, so I turn to her. “I asked Grumpy to use his art skills to paint the logo on the side and everything else.”

“That’s too much for me. Mind helping?” Levi keeps staring at my face, like forcing me to accept.

“I’ll pay you two, of course.”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” I end accepting, noticing that Levi smiles lightly in victory. “I don’t know how to draw or anything, but I can help painting the rest of the wall.”

“Then it’s settled!” Ms. Zoe claps her hands in excitement. “You think you can finish it in one day? Saturday?”

“I’ll use a projector for the logo, so I’ll do it quickly. Are you good with brushes, Eren?”

“Y-Yeah, I guess.”

Someone enters the store then, and Ms. Zoe turns around.

“So it’s great. I’ll let you guys get back to work now.” She says before walking to the automatic door.

Since the customer was busy searching for the products, I turn to face Levi, smirking.

“So, Grumpy?” I joke. “You’re one of the seven dwarfs and never told me?”

“Ugh.” He frowns. “I tried to make Hanji stop calling me that but it’s no use.”

“Hm. Can I call you that too?”

“Don’t you even dare. Otherwise I’ll call you Dopey, what do you think?”

I grimace. “No thanks.”

“Good.” He chuckles and it was kind of cute seeing him chuckle.

For the rest of the day we get cool with each other again. So we play some online games, tick-tac-toes on an old newspaper that was under the counter and finally the night shift starts and we head home. I notice that Levi glances behind two times as I wait for him to get into his house, and in both times he noticed I was staring. I don’t know if I should find it awkward, but I don’t.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nice reading! :3

“I thought you didn’t have to work on Saturday.”

I was trying to leave unnoticed, but my parents were right in the living room when I pass. And when I tell them the truth, the shit starts again.

“I don’t, I’m just going to help painting the walls.” I explain shortly, walking to the front door.

“Such a waste of time.” My dad grumbles. “I thought that, at least on weekends, you’d study and do important things for your career.”

“I’m doing.” I open the front door and close it with a bang. No dealing with their shit today.

I call Levi and ask him if he wanted a ride on my bike, but he didn’t, so I end arriving at the store pretty early and annoying him with texts. It made me kind of happy when he gave me his number yesterday.

Twenty minutes later he appears with a backpack and breathing heavily.

“Why didn’t you allow me to get you?” I ask, offering to hold his backpack. He accepts and thanks me.

“It wouldn’t be a good idea.” He replies, mysterious. “Well, let’s get this shit done.”

“You don’t look very excited.” I point, and he gives me a stare.

“Who’d be excited to paint a wall?” He rolls his eyes. “Come on, help me setting the projector somewhere.”

We grab an extension from the store and put the projector on a chair at a certain distance from the wall, until the drawing was big enough. It was only the logo of the store with a smile face, so it didn’t look so hard to make. Well, of course for me it’d be hard as hell, but anyway, it was not my problem. Levi organizes the brushes and the inks and starts lining the drawing on the wall with a pencil. He was good at making a straight line.

“Are you going to watch?” He turns to me. “Come on, grab the yellow ink and start painting that side.”

Nodding quickly, I do as he says and start from the side of the wall. The light yellow color would look cute for the store, giving it a refreshing and clean look.

Painting was easy enough, it didn’t demand anything more than attention to not leave any part missing or something. And soon it gets boring. Levi was concentrated on his drawing, already painting the letters, and I was sighing every second I passed the brush on the wall.

“Hey, what if we put some music on?” I suggest. “It’s boring to do this in silence.”

“Ask the weekend shift inside if it’s going to annoy them.”

And so I do without any hesitation. I head inside and find the couple kissing behind the checkouts.

“Uh, guys…” I try to call their attention.

“Oh, Eren!” The guy looks to me, smiling. “What’s up, need anything other than the extension?”

“No, we just… we were wondering if it would annoy you if we listen to music. Painting the wall in silence is boring.”

“Well, if it’s not heavy metal, it’s okay!” The girl says, chuckling.

“Yeah, dude!” The guy stands up and walks to the back door. “Here, take the radio with you. You can plug your phone on it.”

“Thanks!” I walk to him and grab the device.

I head back outside and plug the radio on the extension. “What do you want to listen?” I ask, grabbing my phone.

“Madonna.” Levi sighs. “Just kidding, put anything you like.”

“I actually do have Madonna here, if you want.” I chuckle.

“Really?” He turns to me, curious. “Never imagined you’d listen to her.”

“And I never imagined you’d listen, punk boy.”

“I have my moments.” He shrugs. “And I barely listen to music that matches my looks.”

“I noticed. But if you didn’t wear eyeliner no one would think you’re a punk.”

“And I’d look pretty dull.”

“I bet not, your face is pretty.” He turns to me when I say that, frowning and with a half smile. “What?”

“That was so gay I’m going to ignore.” He shakes his head.

“But it’s true.” I pout. “Not everyone is lucky to be born with such features.”

“Uh, well, thanks.” He murmurs.

I end putting all the songs in my phone in random and leave it playing. Our musical tastes were really similar; Levi sings along to almost every song. It was kind of cute listening to him.

“Are you kidding me, I love this song!” He says excitedly when Paris from Lana Del Rey starts playing.

“I thought you loved all the last twenty, by how you were singing…” I joke.

“But this one is special.” He side eyes me. _“Take me to Paris, let’s go there and never look back, Paris, we can be crazy like that…”_

I just chuckle and allow him to continue singing.

When we were a little after halfway, the guy from the weekend shift brings us some ice cream, claiming we’d probably be dying with the heat, and we decide to take a break to eat it. Levi eats all carefully to not get dirty, and it was funny to watch.

“I know you think my face is pretty but stop staring at me.” He kicks my leg playfully. “Anyone who sees you will think you’re in love with me.”

“But you’re so charming, Grumpy…” I play along, chuckling. “I’m so glad I got this job and met you.”

“I’m sorry, Dopey, but I’m straight.” He sighs. “Only if you were a girl…”

“No!” I put my hand in my chest, faking pain. “How will I live now?”

“Change your genitalia and come to me.”

“Anything for you, babe.”

He chuckles and continues eating. I resume eating as well, trying not to make a mess with that ice cream. “But, really, I’m glad I got this job. Guess I did the right jump.”

“If you think so, then it’s great.” He shrugs.

“Yeah. I wish my parents could agree with that, they gave me some shit before I left today as well. Dad said I should be studying and doing something important for my career.”

“I can’t say I disagree completely with him.” He murmurs. “You’re in a great university; you could be doing something else.”

“Please don’t agree with him…” I sigh. “I didn’t want something else in that world. I wanted something out of it; I wanted to see the world out of the line that was planned for my life. I feel like I needed an experience like this.”

“I understand and I don’t. I can’t imagine what this experience is adding to you, but, well, if you feel that way, then it’s enough. Your opinion is the one that matters.”

“I guess so. But it’s hard to convince my parents of that…”

“They’re your parents. They just want to see you happy.” Levi’s tone gets gloomier. “They want what’s best for you.”

I stay in silence for a while, letting his words sink in. I knew it was that, but it was so frustrating that they didn’t try to see my side and respect my choices.

“How are your parents? Are they annoying you with this future stuff like mine?” I ask, and Levi turns to me with a taken aback expression.

“Oh.” He looks to the ground. “I guess they would if they were alive.”

I curse myself for my question. Gosh, if I only knew… “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, it’s been a while already.” He shrugs. “Let’s go back to the wall?”

“Yeah.”

Levi doesn’t sing the next songs, he only paints the wall completely focused. And I continue internally cursing myself for making he feel sad like that.

So I decide to take him off his state and pass my dirty brush on his cheek.

“Hey!” He frowns, trying to clean it off.

I try to dirty him more and he threatens to dirty me with his. And, yeah, we end all dirty with ink. At least I got him chuckling, and soon he was singing again to a happy song that starts playing. And we joke around and forget anything that could be worrying us.

We end everything when the sun was about to leave the sky. Ms. Zoe passes by the store to give us our money and thanks us for our hard work. Fifty bucks. It wasn’t much, but I could use it to buy a new shirt. Levi seems more excited about his payment though, putting it in his wallet and saying he’ll save for some necessity.

I guess I was the only one not working because of the money.

I insist on taking Levi home and he agrees, so I give him a ride to his front door. We joke all the way, I make curves to pretend we’d fall and Levi hits my back, threatening to never get a ride with me again.

But I knew he was joking.

Once we get to his house, I stop the bike on the sidewalk and we notice someone standing at the porch of his house. Levi quickly gets off my bike.

“Where were you?” The person walks down the stairs and comes towards us. It was a tall and scary old man.

“Working. Hanji asked me—us to paint the outside of the store.” Levi explains, nervous. “This is my co-worker.”

“Hm.” The man stares at us, crossing his arms.

“Well…” Levi turns to me, breathing shortly. “Thanks for the ride. You can go now.”

“Okay…” I nod carefully. “See you on Monday.”

“Yeah. Bye.”

“Bye.”

I wanted to go slowly to see what was going to happen, but Levi keep staring at me like telling me to disappear and I can’t find a way to not do so. Who was that scary man, anyway? His guardian? Levi was old enough to not need one, and I’d never stay around a guardian that scary.

I head back home lost in these thoughts and wondering if I should text him when I got home, only to check if everything was okay. But I end not doing so and go take a shower.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We got to 1/3 of the story! Things will start accelerating a bit after all these chapters of them bounding :3  
> Hope you like this chapter!

My mom makes me organize my wardrobe on Sunday, and with that I find my old video camera that I didn’t even remember I had. It was still working perfectly, so I decide to take it with me to work on Monday.

I find Levi scribbling on his sketchbook again when I get there, so I grab the camera and start recording as I walk closer to him. As usual, he closes his sketchbook before I could see what he was doing, and when he lifts his head, he frowns deeply to the camera.

“What are you doing?” He asks.

“A movie.” I continue filming him and sit down on the chair besides him. “About a punk boy who works at a convenience store.”

“Seems promising.” He lifts an eyebrow. “Could you stop filming me now?”

I stop the recording and turn off the camera. “I found this camera yesterday and now I feel like I should film something cool with it.”

“Hm.” He turns his attention back to his computer. “Let’s make a porn movie. At least we can earn something with it.”

“Who’d be the actors?” I shrug, turning the computer on.

Levi turns to me, blinking his eyes repeatedly like he was trying to seduce me. “Didn’t you say I have a pretty face?”

“Yeah, but you could be the main star of an indie movie about an underground rock star. Not a porn star, I mean.”

“That sounds much better.” He nods. “But I also want to be on a porn movie.”

“Okay, then let’s put some explicit sex scenes in it.”

“Would you be my romantic interest?”

I chuckle. “I don’t know how I feel about appearing naked on screen.”

Somehow, the way he only chuckles lightly and turns back to his computer makes me feel like I gave him the answer he wanted to listen to. Not that I really understood why, since we were only joking and all.

“So, how was your weekend?” I ask, trying to engage in a normal conversation. Levi abruptly turns around again and gives me a stare. So much to make him seem happy only to run it in a second. “Oh, sorry, no small talk.”

“One day you’ll understand my hate on small talk. But, just so I look nice, I didn’t do anything on my weekend. What about you?”

“Only had to organize my wardrobe. Well, I was supposed to go out with Mikasa and our other friend Armin, but Armin couldn’t make it so we postponed it.”

“Hm.” He nods, not very interested.

“You must see your high school friends all the time, right?”

“Yeah, sometimes I see some around. But it’s not like I talk to them, I lost contact with everyone.”

“That’s sad.”

“Not that much. The few who were really my friends only came to me to ask about my life. I hate when people make too many questions, so I stopped replying after a while.”

“They were just curious.”

“Well, I don’t like it.”

Levi was really not very tolerant, I should be careful with him. “So who do you hang around with?”

He eyes me with a blank expression and shrugs. “You don’t have friends?”

“Guess you could say that.”

“So you always go out alone?”

“I rarely go out.” He sighs. “And when I go, is to the park to draw something.”

“Oh, okay.” It was kind of weird and depressing, but he didn’t seem annoyed by his situation. Guess it was only me who found it that way. “Oh yeah, who was that man on Saturday?”

“Oh.” He tenses up a little. “My uncle.”

“He seemed kind of scary.”

“And that’s because you’ve only seen him one time. He’s a monster and he hates me.”

“Geez.” I grimace a little. “So this is why you want to get here every morning as soon as possible.”

“Yeah. At least here I can breathe peacefully.”

Some clients come in and go until lunch time. Levi was about to heat the same sandwiches we ate for the entire previous week, until I have a better idea and suggest we should order a pizza.

“Pizzas are expensive.” He frowns. “Hanji gives us ten dollars for food each day, it won’t be enough for pizza.”

“I can pay the difference. Really, if I eat another one of those I’ll throw up.” I insist. “Come on, let’s chose a flavor we both like.”

He hesitates for some seconds before putting the sandwiches back in the freezer. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, come here.”

He comes back to the checkouts and we call the pizzeria down the street. Not even half an hour later the pizza arrives, looking excellent.

“Oh yeah.” I grab a piece and give it a bite.

“Gosh.” Levi carefully grabs another piece with a napkin. “It’s been a while since I last ate one.”

“Really?” I ask with my mouth half full. “I eat pizzas a lot in college.”

“How aren’t you fat?” He chuckles before taking a small bite. “This is good.”

“Pizza is the best food in the world.”

There were eight slices, and after three I already start feeling full, while Levi eats only two and feels totally satisfied. So we leave the box there over the counter to eat if we got hungry again, which happens after an hour or two. The movement gets slower as the day goes by, and it was getting terribly boring again.

I grab the camera once more and start filming around the store.

“We should really make a movie.” I say, turning the camera to Levi, who was scribbling again on his sketchbook.

“Sure.” He says, uninterested.

An idea plops in my head out of the blue, so I stand up excitingly. “What about a music video?”

He lifts his head slowly and looks to me. “You really want to do this, right?”

“Just for fun, come on.” I insist. “Choose a song.”

He closes his sketchbook with a sigh and stands up, already grabbing his phone. He scrolls on it, apparently searching for something. “What would match with a convenience store?”

“Something epic.” I suggest. “Or dramatic.”

“Okay…” He chuckles, still looking to the screen, until he suddenly stops. “Something about the consumerist lifestyle would fit this well too.”

“Yeah…” I say, asking myself which song it could be.

He puts it on play and I instantly start laughing. It was Material Girl, from Madonna. He mimics the beginning of the lyrics, using his phone as a microphone, and I point the camera to him.

“No, don’t film that.” He covers the lens with his hand.

“It’s funny, continue!” I step back. “Put the song from the beginning, let’s make a video.”

He only eyes me, amused. “Why me?”

“Because you’re the good looking one and you know the lyrics.” I stop the filming I was making and get the camera ready to start a new one, so while I was busy with that, I barely notice that Levi blushes. “Get ready!”

“Why am I agreeing with this…” He fidgets with his phone. “Okay, start filming.”

I try hard not to chuckle and starts walking backwards, allowing him to move. He mimics the lyrics looking straight to the camera and trying to look serious, even though he chuckles at the end of each sentence. By the chorus he gets more relaxed and interacts with the products on the store and even with me – pulling my arm, sending me kisses… Even though he was only being funny, I can’t help thinking how he looks good on camera. Like, if I was the one doing this I’d be only ridiculous. He could do anything at all and never look bad.

Don’t ask me why these thoughts fill my mind. Maybe it was some kind of reaction towards his aura. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Once the song is over, I stop filming and put the video on play for us to watch.

“Gosh, erase that, please!” He laughs, eyeing the small screen on the camera.

“Of course not! This will be saved for future generations.”

“You’re never ever going to show this to anyone, then.” He asks. “Gosh.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. But you look good on it, even acting stupid.”

He shifts his glance to me, a soft smile still on his lips. We stare to each other’s face, and just before I said anything else, we listen to the automatic door being opened and a client walks in. I quickly turn off the camera and hide it in my bag to pretend we were nothing but working.

Not much time later our shift ends. We leave the store still giggling while remembering the video, and we start making up ideas for other videos as well. As we head to my bike, we are surprised by Mikasa, who was walking towards us.

“Oh, hey.” She eyes between us.

We were still laughing, so I try to recompose myself. “Hey Mikasa! What are you doing here?”

“Oh…” She looks to Levi and pauses. “Nothing much, just passing by. Seems like you’re having fun.”

“Yeah, we are.” I say, looking to Levi. “We’re discussing some ideas.”

Then Levi elbows my stomach, and we both start chuckling.

“That seems… Fun.” She says, kind of awkward.

“But what are you doing here?” I get curious.

“I’m just going to buy something inside.”

“Oh, okay! We’re off now, so I’ll see you later.”

“See ya.”

Levi and Mikasa only nod to each other and she walks into the store. It was kind of weird Mikasa coming here to shop, since there’s a convenience store much closer to her house, but I would think about it later.

“Let’s go?” I say.

“Yeah.” Levi nods.

We go all the way laughing and making fun of things, and, this time, he waves to me from his front door before entering his house. I wave back and remain there stupidly on my spot for a couple of seconds before turning my bike around and heading home.

And on the way home I finally give some thought to Mikasa’s appearance. It seemed like she only went there to see me, but got uncomfortable with Levi and gave up. So as soon as I get in my room, I give her a call.

“Eren!” She replies. “I was going to call you later tonight.”

“Is that so? I was curious with the reason you appeared today.”

“Yeah…” She pauses. “I actually wanted to invite you to my birthday party this weekend.”

“Oh, your birthday!” I tap my own forehead. I’m terrible with dates. “Gosh, I almost forgot.”

“No worries.” She chuckles. “It’s going to be a small thing in my backyard, so I hope you come. Armin already confirmed and all.”

“Sure, I’ll be there!” I nod. And silence again. My conversations with Mikasa were not flowing like before. At least the silence makes me think of Levi and how I’d like if he could go with me. “Hey, uh… Is it okay if Levi goes with me?”

She remains in silence for long seconds and I fear I made the worst question I could. “Sure.”

And another silence. “Uh, I then I’ll see ya?”

“Yeah.” She sighs, like she still meant to say something but I interrupted. “See ya.”

I end the call feeling very awkward. But, then, I grab my bag and get the camera to watch the video again.

I fall in my bed and watch it in loop for about three times. And I couldn’t get tired of seeing Levi on the screen.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mikasa's birthday party, alcohol and riding a bike while drunk.  
> Hope you like this!

_“please please PLEASE come here, Im begging you”_

_“Is it this boring?”_

_“its not that it is boring, its just… I dont talk to anyone here”_

_“What about that friend of yours, Armin?”_

_“I dont know, its weird with her.... like we dont have anything to share anymore and high school is so far behind us”_

_“That’s sad.”_

_“… says the guy that doesn’t has friends.”_

_“What did you want me to say?”_

_“say yes and come here”_

_“Mikasa didn’t invite me. Which part of that didn’t you understand?”_

_“but she allowed me to bring you. aw, come on, just come here. for me.”_

_“She didn’t even want to invite you in front of me.”_

_“Levi, please… come here, I want to see you so bad.”_

Levi reads my message and stops replying, what makes me worry. Maybe I was annoying him too much, he doesn’t even like this kind of stuff.

Besides, what am I doing? Calling him to the birthday party of the cousin he never talks to? I’m totally going overboard.

Just before I type a message apologizing to him, I notice that he sent one.

_“Okay, I’ll stop by. Just to see you, outside.”_

_“YES YES YES come here now I’ll be waiting”_

_“you’re so needy, dickhead”_

_“love you too <3”_

I stuff my phone back in my pocket with a huge grin in my face, for some reason.

“Who were you talking to?” Armin notices, giggling.

“Oh, just a friend from work.” I turn to him.

“Mikasa’s cousin?” He lifts an eyebrow.

“Y-Yeah…” I tilt my head to the side.

“Hm. You two got pretty close, right?” Something on his tone sounds pretty suspicious, but I decide to brush it away.

“Yeah, he’s cool.”

Just as a call from heavens, a former classmate appears to greet us and starts small talking to Armin, making me sigh in relief. And a few minutes later I get a text from Levi, saying he’s outside. I excuse myself quickly and almost run there, finding him partially hidden behind a tree.

“What are you doing?” I chuckle, walking towards him.

“Avoiding that anyone from my family sees me here.” He hides completely when I stop by his side.

“Would it be a problem?”

“I’m not the most loved person on the family. But I don’t really know what would be their reaction.”

“Why don’t you find it out today?” I grin and pull his arm.

“No fuckin’ way.” He slaps my hand away. “I told you I’d stay only outside.”

“There’s free food.”

“No, Eren.” He shots me a death glare.

“Okay, sorry.” I wave my hands in the air.

We stare at each other’s face for a few seconds. Levi looks a little more blue than usual, which makes me worry a bit.

“Did something happen?” I decide to ask.

“There’s always something happening, Eren.” He replies, nonchalant.

“Yeah, but, uh, you can tell me if you want.”

“It’s just the same shit as always with my uncle, nothing much.” He sighs. “Well, then, what did you call me here for?”

“To have a good time.” I smile sheepishly. “Come on, let’s go inside. If anyone asks, I’ll say you’re my guest.”

“Eren, I’m serious, it’s not a good idea. If you think the party is boring, we could just go somewhere else.”

“Five minutes.” I lift my hand in front of his face. “Just for five minutes. We grab some food, we check how people react by your presence and we leave.”

Levi sighs deeply, rolling his eyes, and turns his glance to the backyard. We could hear the music and chatting coming from there.

“Are you really going to make me do this?”

“You’re with me. It’s going to be okay.”

He turns to eye me, lifting an eyebrow, and I smile. “Come on.”

I hope my insistence to make him join the party didn’t make him upset. It’s not like I wouldn’t leave with him if I noticed people were acting weird towards him or if he didn’t want to stay there after all. As we walk past some people, he grabs my arm and walks close to me, like he was uncomfortable.

“If you leave me alone I’ll cut your head off.”

“I won’t, don’t worry.”

I guide us to the food table to fill my hand with candies and give him some as well. Then Armin walks towards us.

“Hey, you disappeared.” He greets me and turns his glance to Levi. “Who’s your friend?”

“Levi.” He replies, nonchalant.

“Oh, you’re Mikasa’s cousin!” He gasps. “I can see the resemblance, you two look alike.”

“At least I don’t look like my uncle. Our uncle, I mean.” Levi shrugs. “Anyway, it’s been five minutes already, Eren.”

“Two and a half.” I nudge him softly. “We still need some alcohol.”

“Why am I thinking this is not a good idea?”

“Free drinks are always a good idea.” Armin pops in. “Come on; let me take you two to them.”

Levi walks besides me, glancing around, and I notice some people glance back at him. Mikasa’s mom, for example. And she doesn’t seem pleased to see him there, which makes me worry. But then I put my arm around his shoulder, like telling people he was with me, and continue walking. Once we get to the drink table, Mikasa spots us and comes towards us.

“Uh, hello.” She greets Levi.

“Hello.” He awkwardly greets her. “Happy birthday, I guess.”

“Thanks.” She nods.

I sense a tension growing between them, so I decide to turn the attention to the drinks.

“So, Levi, do you want vodka with what?” I ask him, grabbing two plastic cups.

“Soda is fine.” He turns to me.

“Well, I’m going to greet more people. Soon we’ll open some space to dance, so, well, I hope you guys enjoy.” Mikasa says. “See you around!”

“Wait, Mikasa.” Levi calls her. “If you want me to leave, I’ll go.”

I kind of worry about Mikasa’s reply, but she only smiles with the side of her mouth.

“It’s fine, you’re Eren’s guest.”

She, then, turns around and walks away. Armin follows her and they go chatting, so I turn back to Levi.

“See? It’s okay.”

“I’m your guest. Which means she’d never invite me.” He sighs. “Like I didn’t know that. Anyway, it proves that they don’t want me here.”

“Don’t think too much, she told us to enjoy, right?” I finish mixing his drink and hand him a cup. “So let’s enjoy.”

We don’t enjoy much, though. Mikasa clears some space on the grass to allow people to dance, and I insisted Levi to dance with me but he didn’t want to. So we continue drinking by the drinks table, and soon my head starts spinning.

And Levi’s head starts spinning as well, so he decides that he should go home now. Of course I wouldn’t let him go alone, so I offer him a ride on my bike.

“Eren, you’re going so slow I’m going to fall asleep here.”

“I don’t want us to have an accident.” I say, trying to focus on the road. The lines were blurry and my senses were pretty horrible, so I needed to take care. “If you knew how to ride a bike we wouldn’t need to go through this.”

“Tsk, you’re the one who drank too much.” He clicks his tongue, annoyed, and rests his head on my back. “Wake me up when we arrive.”

Keeping a straight line was hard as hell, but since I didn’t want to annoy Levi any more, I give my best to ride it smoothly all the way to his house. Of course I couldn’t avoid some holes on the road, but Levi seemed almost passed out in my back and barely noticed the disturbance.

“We’re here!” I stop the bike by the sidewalk, quite a time later.

Levi lazily lifts his head, recognizing his surroundings. “How many hours did you take?” He chuckles.

“Less than half an hour, okay?” I pout. “Get off."

He carefully grabs my shoulders to lift himself from the bike.

“Oh, I drooled in your shirt.” He says as he stands in the sidewalk. “Consider it a gift.”

“Great, thanks.” I try to look at my own back. “I’d rather have your drool somewhere else.”

Okay, I was still quite drunk. After saying that, I turn to Levi and find him grimacing to me.

“I hope you didn’t mean anything with that.” He says, grinning. “I guess I should go inside. See you later.”

He doesn’t wait for my reply and turns to walk to his front door. I remain sitting stupidly on my bike, trying to understand as well what I meant with those words. Then I watch as he walks, turning to glance behind at me once before he got in his porch, and I feel like there’s something else about these moments we’ve been sharing these past weeks. These never mentioned awkward exchange of glances until he disappears inside his house.

Why did I always wait? Why was I still here, today?

Then the alcohol acts, and I decide I should do something about it. It makes me believe I had to do something, not quite sure what, but I had to. So I call him.

He pauses on his tracks and slowly turns around, surprised but trying to keep his cool. “Go home, Eren, you’re drunk.” He says with a grin.

“Just wait a second.”

I let my bike fall on the ground and walk to him. He stares at my face until I’m a step away from him and crosses his arms, like I was challenging him on something I didn’t know. I try to think about something to say but nothing comes in mind, like all my thoughts were covered by clouds.

“What is it, Eren?” He sighs, not breaking eye contact with me. He was definitely challenging me. _What are you going to do, Eren?_

“I guess I mean it. About the drool.”

Before his expression squirmed, I pull him closer for a kiss. He doesn’t push me away.

“What are you doing?” He chuckles as soon as we break away. “You’re not gay, Eren.”

“How do you know?” I ask, and he stops chuckling. I take advantage of that and kiss him again.

We continue kissing, I put my arm on his waist and grip him gently, pulling him closer, and it all felt like bliss. Like it wasn’t really happening, like it was only a dream or an alternate reality.

“Okay, you should go home.” Levi interrupts. “Someone can see us and we’re both too drunk.”

“I don’t want to.” I try to bend for another kiss, but he shoves his hand in my face.

“Text me when you arrive home. Otherwise I’ll think you had an accident or slept on the street.” He says, pushing me away. “Now go.”

I don’t walk at first, staring at him and wanting to just kiss him again. But then he crosses his arms and throws me such a death glare that I go back to my bike.

I don’t remember my ride back home, like I just jumped from a scene to the other. Once I get there I go straight to my room with my head spinning. I throw myself in my bed and remember that Levi asked me to text me when I arrived, so I do so. He replies almost instantly, with a short okay.

I put my phone over the nightstand and stare at the ceiling, lost in thoughts. My mind was slowly clearing up from that fog, and everything that happened that night slowly start feeling less like a dream and more like real life.

Until I get to the kiss.

I grab my phone awkwardly and think about sending Levi another text. But I didn’t want to simply text him. I wanted to hear his voice. So I decide to call.

“What’s up?” He mutters lazily.

“Was it a dream or did I really kiss you?” I ask, confused.

I hear his chuckle on the other side of the line and something warm fills my chest. “Yeah, you did.”

“Oh.” I chuckle with him. “I guess we have something to talk about later.”

“Yeah. When we’re both sober.”

“Yeah. Tomorrow?”

“At the park?”

“Sure.”

“Okay.” He says softly, yawning right after. “I need to sleep.”

“Me too.”

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

I end the call and roll to the side on my bed, hiding my face in the pillow.

I kissed Levi.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of late, but merry christmas!!  
> Hope you enjoy this chapter <3

Levi texts me saying that we’d meet me at the park after lunch, but I was so anxious that I can’t eat anything. Probably my parents thought I was acting pretty weird, since I excuse myself from the table without even touching the food and storm out of the house right after it.

I was too early, though, so I take my skateboard with me to practice a little on the skatepark before we met. Maybe I managed to relax while doing that.

Luckily there weren’t many people at the park on that time, so I have the skatepark all for me. I leave my bike on the grass and grab my skate to try doing some maneuvers, already cursing the fact that I forgot to bring my kneepads.

I stay so focused on trying not to fall and break my neck that I don’t even notice when Levi arrives. He sits over the skatepark and starts drawing something, until I finally see him and go to him.

“Hey.” I say, kind of awkwardly.

“Hey.” He doesn’t shift his glance from his sketchbook. “I didn’t know you were good with skateboards as well.”

“I’m not.” I chuckle, embarrassed, and jump to sit by his side. “What are you doing there?”

He lifts his drawing and allows me to see. It was just a quick sketch of me on a skateboard. “You’re good on that.” I blush.

“It’s easy when the model helps.” He closes the sketchbook. “Was that too flirty?”

“Kind of.” I bite my lower lip.

“Oh.” He shrugs. “Well, it’s not like you didn’t know.”

“Know what?”

He glares at my face. “That I have a crush on you?”

The way he puts it in words, so easily, makes my heart rush in my chest. “I—I didn’t think it like that—“

“Come on, you saw me drawing you two days after we met. Don’t be stupid.”

But maybe I was really stupid. Because the thought never crossed my mind, not bluntly like that. It made me blush even harder.

“Did you plan on telling me?” I ask, legitimately curious.

“I thought you already knew, shithead.” He rolls his eyes.

“Oh.” I nod. “Well, I’m glad I got drunk and kissed you, then. I’d never suspect and you’d never tell me.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, I’d totally jump on you yet. One day before you left, probably.”

“We’d have wasted the entire summer.” I sigh.

“Yeah, but what can I do? I thought you were straight, you never said anything. I thought you’d say something after I came out to you, but you simply ignored it.”

“Sorry, I’m not good with these relationship things.” I smile embarrassed.

His expression softens and he smiles slightly. “It’s fine. I find it kind of cute.”

We finally exchange glances, then. Levi’s hoodie was hiding the side of his face, so I take it off his head and brush his fringe to the side.

“Come on, kiss me.” He says, since all I did was staring into his blue eyes.

And so we bend closer for a kiss. It felt better now that I wasn’t drunk; it felt more real. Like ohmygodthisisreallyhappening.

He puts his hand on my face and I place my hand above his. We continue kissing until we listen to some people approaching, so we jump apart.

“Let’s go somewhere else.” I suggest, jumping off the skatepark and offering him my hand. “Come on.”

He takes my hand with a grin and we walk to a less crowded place. Well, it was a Sunday, so the park gets full of people on the afternoon. Levi, then, pulls me into the woods, until we’re far from anyone.

“Good enough.” He says as we stop by a tree.

“Yeah.” I chuckle.

We return to kissing, then I sit down resting my back on the tree and he sits between my legs so we could kiss more comfortable. I place my hands on his waist and feel how skinny he is, almost to the point of breaking.

After a while we only cuddle. He rests his head on my chest and I hold him, kissing the top of his head and feeling the smell of his shampoo. This felt so good that it almost seemed natural, like meant to happen sooner or later. My anxiety from earlier disappeared; now all I wanted was to hug him.

“So, Eren, are you gay or not?” He suddenly asks me, playing with the buttons of my shirt.

“I… Never gave it much thought.” I decide to be honest.

“How can someone never have given it much thought?” He frowns.

“Hey, I’ve never been much into these relationships things…”

“Oh, late bloomer.” He grins.

“Not that late, I’m only nineteen.”

“That’s pretty late, Eren.”

“Then what about you, Mr. Experienced?” I tease, softly shaking him. “Tell me about your ninety previous boyfriends.”

He chuckles and doesn’t reply at first, like he was thinking. And the seconds go without him replying me. I almost fear my joke somehow offended him, but then he finally does. “I don’t have any experience as well.”

“Then why are you bugging me?” I chuckle. He seemed embarrassed, and it didn’t make sense for him to be.

“Because you act like a virgin.” He elbows me. “Not being into these relationships things…”

“Aw, I’m just not good on making moves on people. You could ask Mikasa, she helped me a few times.”

“With girls from your school?” He asks, turning to me.

“Only this one girl I had a crush on. But it didn’t work.”

“I’d say I feel sorry, but I don’t. You’re with me now.” He grins.

“Yeah, I’m with you now.” I grin as well.

So we kiss again and again. And again. His hand on my neck, my hand lifting a bit from his shirt… For a beginner, he was an amazing kisser. I actually allow him to take the lead and just follow his movements, because oh god.

And I’ve never thought that kissing a guy would be this good.

The afternoon goes like that. We stay under that tree until it starts getting dark, when he says he should go home before his uncle cut his head off. I grab my bike from where I left it and cycle slowly to his house. This time, he hugs me from behind on the bike, and that brings me a sense of security I hadn't experienced yet.

I stop in front of his house and we get off my bike. Then we keep eyeing each other, like we didn’t want to say goodbye but had to.

“Okay, I got to go.” He finally says.

“Okay.” I sigh.

Before he turned away, I grab his arm and pull him closer again for a kiss. He corresponds, but I sense he’s kind of nervous.

“Sorry.” I say as we break apart. “I didn’t resist.”

“It’s okay.” He chuckles. “But we shouldn’t do this here, my uncle can see us and it’ll be a pain in the ass.”

“Okay, I’ll behave.” I look around.

“See you tomorrow.” He mutters, before biting his lower lip.

“Yeah, see you.”

He walks slowly to his front door, and I stay there watching him stupidly like I always did. We wave like silly before he closed the door, and I have to gather forces to leave. I grab my bike, take a last glance to his house and finally cycle away, with him all over my thoughts.

I get home, go to the kitchen, grab something to eat, ignore completely my parents – who try to talk to me about something, but my mind doesn’t even register it – and go to my room. I lock the door and fall on my bed, looking to the ceiling.

Gosh. Gosh gosh gosh. I was probably only blind and didn’t notice how much I had a crush on him as well. Because right now the feelings are exploding inside me.

I wish I had noticed before. He had a crush on me since day one and I never imagined things that way. I’m so dumb.

Without thinking, I grab my phone and decide to call him, for no reason in particular. Just to hear his voice.

“Hey.” I say once he picks up.

“Hey.” His voice sounds like velvet through the phone.

Kissing him comes back to my head, so I bite my lower lip. “What are you doing?”

“I’m lying on my bed.” He mutters, still on his velvet tone. “You?”

“I’m also lying on my bed.” I chuckle.

“So we are both stupid that actually had to lie down to think about today. But you were the one who had the guts to call.”

“Did you think about calling me as well?”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t. I’d just stay here wondering if this is really real life.”

“You could have called me.” I turn to my side. “Hearing your voice makes me feel good.”

“Being clingy is not my thing very much. But hearing your voice makes me feel good as well.”

We both chuckle on each end. It fills my chest with warmth. “Is it possible that I already miss you?”

“At least we’ll see each other tomorrow for the entire day.”

“Yeah.” I couldn’t wait, especially since the store stays empty almost the entire time. “I’m anxious.”

“Me too.”

We spend about half an hour talking about nothing like that, until he feels sleepy and we decide to end the call.

I couldn’t wait for tomorrow.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year!! (kind of late, but anyway)  
> Hope you like this chapter :3

I wake up, take a very careful bath, put on some perfume, make sure my hair is perfectly brushed and my breath smells nice and leave for work.  As I was hoping to arrive there and greet Levi with a kiss, I find Ms. Zoe was inside with a bunch of new boxes.

“Oh, hey, Eren.” She greets me, writing something on her clipboard. “Help Levi putting these things on the shelves.”

“Sure.” I nod. Then Levi looks to me from behind the checkouts with a smirk, and I smirk back. Oh gosh, I want to kiss him again so bad.

“Well, tell me if you need anything.” Ms. Zoe lowers the clipboard, sighing. “I’m off now.”

We watch as she leaves the store, and keep staring through the glass door until we made sure she got in her car and left. When everything seems safe, we walk to each other and start kissing.

“Hey.” I whisper between his lips.

“Hey.” He whispers as well, not even minding to open his eyes. “Wow, you smell good.”

“I’m glad you liked.”

Suddenly the automatic door opens and we jump apart. I pretend to be doing something and grab one of the new boxes while Levi goes back behind the checkouts, like nothing ever happened.

The client walks around the entire store, taking a lot of time, and Levi and I only exchange some glances while he didn’t leave. I start placing some new mouth washes on a shelf, tagging their price on each bottle and separating them by flavors. Seeing them makes me remember about my breath, so I discreetly check if it was still fresh. Fortunately it was.

As soon as the client leaves, Levi leaves the checkouts and walks towards me.

“This is going to be hard.” He stops by my side.

“We need to behave.” I say, putting the price tagger down. “But only when there’s people here.”

“Yeah.”

So I pull him by the arm and push him against the shelves. We kiss some more, until something plops in my head. “Wait, what about the security cameras?”

“They only check them if the store is robbed. So almost never.” He grabs my shirt. “Now come here.”

When I push Levi against the shelf again, though, he hits a mouthwash with his elbow and that makes them all fall down like dominoes.

“Ops.” He chuckles. “Sorry.”

“That was tiresome to organize, ok?” I grin, approaching my face to his. “I’m going to have to punish you…”

“Oh, please do punish me.” He bites his lower lip. “I’ve been a bad boy…”

Then the automatic door opens again and we have to jump apart so quick that I almost hit my back on the shelf behind me. Levi runs back to the checkouts and I continue naturally organizing the products.

Maybe the idea of making out inside the store wasn’t that good. We exchange some sad glances while we’re distant, and sometimes he makes sexy faces just to provoke me and I have to control myself to not run to him.

Luckily I don’t take long to finish with those boxes and can come back to the checkouts. We wait for a couple to leave the store and finally kiss again.

“It’s been an eternity.” I whisper.

“Yeah.” He grabs my shirt. “Oh, I have an idea.”

He stands up and pushes his chair away to sit on the floor behind the checkout.

“You’re smart.” I do the same and sit by his side.

“Now we’re safe.” He grins. “Come here.”

We continue hidden there, only leaving when someone walks in. We don’t do anything in particular other than staring into each other’s eyes, kissing, poking each other’s nose and cheeks… Levi also cuddles closer to me, and so I hug him firmly. This was amazing.

“Hey, did you bring your camera today?” He suddenly asks.

“Oh, no, I didn’t. Why?”

“Too bad. Now we could film that porn movie.”

I blush instantly with his words. “Isn’t a bit too early for that?”

“It’s never too early to have some fun. Bring it tomorrow.” He bites his lower lip and starts playing with my hair. “ _Sexual adventures inside a convenience store_ will be the title.”

Sometimes I have difficulty in separating when he was joking and when he wasn’t. “We’ll be fired. Besides, I’m too much of a newbie to film something called sexual adventures…”

“Then we can film _Virgins on the woods_ at the park _._ I guess it would sell.”

“Yeah, it would. But we should have our first time in a better place other than the park...”

“Are you already thinking about sex, Eren?” He bends closer and starts kissing my neck.

“N-No, I didn’t mean it that way—“ And I really didn’t. Like, we just started seeing each other this way, it was too soon for me.

“Yeah, right.” He playfully rolls his eyes.

Before we could make out a little more, someone walks into the store, so I sit back on the chair and mention for Levi that he could continue there on the floor. He comes closer to my legs and puts a hand over my tight, but I quickly remove it with a frown. He better not make this kind of jokes, not while a client was strolling around the store. I look to him and find him grinning. Sometimes I really wondered when he was just kidding or not.

When the night shifters arrive, they see us standing from the floor and eye us suspiciously, but we act the most natural we could to show we weren’t doing anything weird.

We head outside, grab my bike and leave. When we were passing by the park, though, Levi suddenly tells me to stop the bike. I do as he says and get confused as he jumps quickly from behind my back.

“Come here.” He grabs my arm. “Quick.”

I awkwardly get off the bike and let it fall on the grass to follow him. He guides me a little further into the woods, until he stops against a tree and pulls me closer. Oh. I soon get what he intended with this and we start making out.

I was pretty fine with everything on the beginning. Kissing, touching, that was awesome. Then I get a little nervous when he moves my hand up under his shirt, like telling me to touch him more, but I soon like the idea and caress his back and waistline. He moans with approval when I do that, and it was so hot I almost have a stroke.

When he traps my left leg between his legs, I feel like things are getting a little ahead of themselves. But I still don’t stop it, since we were making out and I guess this was normal when you make out with someone. Like, I’ve never passed kissing and some little touching, and I didn’t want to act like a complete newbie. So I go on, even lifting my leg a bit to touch his crotch and listen to the sexy noises he makes.

But, oh well, I have to stop when he aims for my belt. I jump apart, holding his hand to keep him from unbuckling it, and he only eyes me with a confused expression.

“Sorry.” I whisper, embarrassed. “I guess this is too much for now.”

“Oh.” He lets go of my belt, and I sense he also got embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

He bites his lip and, before it got too awkward, he steps closer to me for a hug. I hug him back and caress the back of his head.

“We should get going.” He mutters. “It’s late.”

“Yeah, we should.”

Our way to his house is filled with us forcing to act naturally, like nothing awkward happened and everything was okay. And, when I get home, I have to run to my room to scream in my pillow, feeling like an idiot. How could I have stopped like that? Gosh, what if I made him feel like I didn’t want him?

So many thoughts float in my head that I can’t help calling him. I needed to clear things up.

“Hey.” I say as he picks up.

“Hey.” He says, but without his velvet tone.

“Look, I’m sorry.” I tremble. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, I just—“

“Hey, it’s okay.” He cuts me. “Why do you think I’m feeling bad?”

“Because I stopped that way, and I noticed how awkward it got later. I’m sorry, really.”

“Gosh, calm down, Eren. I’d feel bad if I made you do something that you’re not comfortable to do yet.” He says calmly. “Just chill.”

I take a deep breath. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I am.” He chuckles softly. “I’m the one who actually should apologize again for making you go through that. It’s just that I’ve wanted so much to be with you like this and now it’s really happening… But I’ll control myself next time.”

“I swear that you’re so hot that it was hard as hell to stop.” I hint. “But… I just don’t want to do it like that, you know? We deserve a quiet and comfortable place. Not behind a tree on the park…”

“Yeah, I totally get it. And I agree with you.”

We both sigh at each end, probably thinking the same thing. “I wish you were here in my room with me. In my bed.”

“That’d be perfect.” He mutters with his velvet tone back. Oh gosh. “We can figure out a way, one day. Sometimes my uncle goes out, and we can get some hours in my room.”

“Yeah, my parents go out as well sometimes and stay the entire day out. Unfortunately they’re both on their break now and most time at home, but, who knows?”

“We should be alert to any opportunity that appears.”

“Yeah.”

We chat for a little more and decide to sleep. I actually take a while rolling around in bed, only thinking about what we talked. Levi seemed so anxious about sex, talking about it and suggesting things every two minutes, when the idea never appealed to me that much. Well, until this evening, at least. Now, thinking about having him in my room made me feel so anxious. I had no idea how far we’d go, but I really didn’t mind.

I just wanted to touch him; I just wanted to discover his body like the little I did by touching under his shirt. Slowly, softly. Learning his reactions, where he liked or not. In a safe and nice place, without having to worry about anything at all.

Yeah, we didn’t really deserve it behind a tree.

It should be nicer than this.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, I'm currently in my hometown and internet access is hard here...  
> anyway, this chapter is bigger than usual, but get your hearts ready! D  
> Hope you like this!

The week passes like the world suddenly became an awesome place to live in. Levi and I keep hidden most of the time behind the checkouts to kiss, and we stop everyday to make out a little behind that tree on the park. Like, not a wild make out, just some kissing and touching. He even asks me if I’m okay with it, and I surely am. While we didn’t have a nice place, we could kill some anxiety there. Besides that, we start calling each other every day before sleeping and it was amazing to hear his velvet voice right before snoozing.

And I couldn’t get tired of looking to his face. I mean, I could seriously stare for the entire day. And that’s how I notice how his small blue eyes seem to be always glassy, how his eyelashes are long and black, how his nose is small and pointy, his lips thin and soft… I could go on forever.

I have to confess that so much Levi in my life made me wake up hard a couple of times, but what could I do. He laughs about it when I tell him – yes I told him, yeah, I know – and he said I’m finally experiencing what he has been experiencing since he met me. Oh.

Things were just so good between us that I didn’t want it to ever end.

On Saturday morning, I wake up around midday and find a note by my parents on the kitchen, saying that my dad went to some friend’s house and my mom went out with my aunt. The prospect of having the house all to myself makes me quickly call Levi to ask him to come over.

I take a quick shower, put some clean clothes and wait for him to arrive, which doesn’t take much long.

“Hey.” I burst the door open before he even ringed the doorbell. Yeah, I was waiting by the window.

“Wow, hey.” He chuckles, taking off his earphones.

I grab his arm to pull him inside, and after shutting the door closed, I push him against it to give him a welcome kiss.

“Calm down, you hormonal teenager.” He pulls me away, chuckling again.

“Come on, we finally have a comfortable place to be alone, we should enjoy.” I caress his face with my thumb.

“Yeah, but take me to your room first.” He takes my hand off his face. “Someone can walk in on us here.”

“Believe me; my parents will probably stay out all day.” I grab his hand. “Come on.”

I take him upstairs and notice how he looks around the house, apparently surprised. Which is funny, since my house isn’t anything much.

“Here’s my room.” I open the door for him to enter.

He stares around the room and his eyes fall at my bed, still undone.

“Okay, I was going to say that your house is extremely organized and clean compared to mine, but now I take that back.” He sighs.

“Aw, come on…” I step closer to him, grabbing his waist. “I didn’t make my bed because I imagined we’d mess it later…”

“Okay, that was a smart thought.”

So I push him against it, climbing over his body.

“This is so much better than that tree on the park…” I try to find a good position.

“Please, this doesn’t even compare. Your mattress is amazing.”

We start kissing and touching, slowly at first and blunter with time, until I’m grinding him against the mattress and it feels so damn good. Then he grabs my shirt and pulls it up so I could take it off. And I do the same with him, of course.

And then my mom calls me from downstairs and we jump apart desperately. I guess I never put on a shirt that quickly.

“Oh, hey, mom.” I turn to the door once she appears by it.

“Why didn’t you answer when I called you?” She asks before turning to Levi, who was awkwardly sitting on the corner of the bed. “Oh, I didn’t know you’d ask your friend to come over.”

“Oh, yeah, this is Levi, mom.” I introduce them.

“Nice to meet you.” She smiles to him, and he forcefully smiles back. “Do you guys want to have lunch? Your aunt and I will try to make some recipes in the kitchen…”

I turn to Levi and he lightly shakes his head negatively, so I turn back to my mom. “We were actually going out now.” I say.

“Oh, okay then.” She nods. “Be careful with what you eat on the street.”

“Roger that.”

Once she leaves us alone, Levi exhales all the air he was holding and falls back on the bed.

“Gosh, that was so close I almost had a heart attack.” He mumbles.

“I know.” I pass a hand by my hair. “Well, let’s get out of here.”

We leave my house and grab my bike. As I cycle around the blocks, we think about somewhere we should go, until I pass in front of the old cinema near the park.

“We could watch a movie.” I stop my bike in front of it, shrugging. “Or two or three for the entire afternoon.”

“And you think I have money for that?”

“I pay for you. This cinema is wrecked, so tickets are cheap. People come here only to make out.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that…” He nods behind me. “Well, if you pay for me, I’m up to it.”

I leave my bike in a light post and we check the sections of the movies. Fortunately there was one starting in forty minutes, a very bad looking horror movie.

“This one?” I point to the poster.

“If you think I’ll be scared and hug you, then no.” He lifts an eyebrow.

“We’ll barely watch the movie.” I grin. “Want something to eat first?”

We eat some hot dogs until the time of the movie and head inside the room. There were some people inside, so we opt to stay in a corner on the back, where no one was nearby. And as soon as the light turns out, we start making out. Once or twice we see the screen to check what was going on the movie, but it seemed so bad that we simply ignore it.

We watch two movies – and by watch you know what I mean – until we get sick of those seats and decide to leave the cinema. It was still only six in the afternoon, so we still had sunlight and we had no wish to say goodbyes yet. So we head to the only place we could be alone; our usual spot at the park.

While the sun was still out, we only cuddle and kiss softly sitting against the tree we always sat under, mostly enjoying each other’s presence. But, as soon as our surroundings start darkening, Levi starts pulling me for hotter kisses and being more blunt when he touches me. I follow his pace and we make out more harshly, until I sense I was about to get hard and it’d be totally awkward.

“We should slow down.” I stop in a certain moment and rest my back against the tree.

“Aw, come on...” He approaches and aims to my neck, kissing it.

“Really, it’s hard down here.” I chuckle. “In a few minutes I’ll have a big hump to hide.”

“Big, huh?” He whispers sexily. “I want to see that.”

I almost choke on spit. “Don’t provoke me.”

“Hey, let’s continue, just a little more. The thing at your house went down the drain, anyway…”

“But we’d only have to hide our… things… until we get home. Like, I don’t know if it’s worth it to continue, since we wouldn’t do much about it…”

“Well, maybe you wouldn’t do much about it, but I’d certainly do.” He lifts his head and eyes me with a devilish expression.

I don’t find words to reply to that suggestion because my mind gets filled with dirty thoughts.

“Hey, come here.”

Oh gosh. He grabs my arm and lies on his back on the grass, pulling me to get over his body. I look around only to check and all I could see was a bunch of trees surrounded by darkness, so I turn my attention back to him and find a good position above him.

“Imagine all the bugs around us…” I chuckle.

“Shut up.” He makes a disgusted expression.

He puts his hand behind my neck and pulls me down to kiss him. It was kind of tricky to keep myself above him without literally smashing him against that so not comfortable ground, so I need to keep balancing my weight on my arms and legs and it kind of hurts. Until he notices I’m uncomfortable and opens his legs. I blush so hard that he might have seen it even though it was dark.

“Fit your legs under mine, dumbass.” He says, lifting his legs and putting them around my waist.

I do as he says, bending my knees and putting them to the sides of his body, and my crotch touches directly his ass. Oh. “You’ve seen too much porn.”

“You don’t even know.” He grabs my shirt and pulls me again.

We kiss for a while, grinding against each other, and I try to avoid moving too much and making myself getting hard.

“I know it was my idea but—“ He stops after a while, frowning. “My back hurts.”

“Oh.” I quickly sit up and help him up as well. “Are you okay?”

He sits up carefully, still frowning, and tries to stretch himself. “Fuck this grass. I want your bed again.”

“Gosh, I want it as well.”

We give up the previous position and go back to sitting against the tree. Levi cuddles above my body and we hold hands, each other probably thinking how it sucked that we didn’t have a good place to stay alone.

“We should probably go home.” I mutter after a while, hugging him stronger.

“Yeah.” He sighs.

We don’t move at first, so I continue lost in thoughts. Until an idea pops in my head. “Do you have skype?”

“Yeah, why?” He sits up and faces me.

“We could continue this there.” I suggest with a grin.

“I didn’t know you’d enjoy cyber sex.” He chuckles. “We can give it a try tonight.” 

“I-I didn’t mean it as sex, j-just as a way to see each other…” I blush hard and he only lifts an eyebrow to me. “A-Anyway, as soon as we get home?”

“So anxious. I’ll put my sexy pajamas to seduce you.”

“I’ll love to see it.”

From the moment we say that to the moment we actually leave it takes around an hour. We start kissing again to say goodbye, then we stand up and kiss some more against the tree…  and finally walk hand in hand to where I left my bike.

I unlock my bike from the light post I left it and turn back to Levi, who was now checking his phone with a sudden serious expression. “What’s up?” I ask, kind of worried.

“Oh, nothing.” He shakes his head and stuffs his phone back in his pocket. “Let’s go?”

I don’t press him to tell me anything, so we just go all the way to his home in silence. And, of course, before letting him go, I remind him of what we settled earlier. He only chuckles at my anxiety and tells me to leave.

I head home, grab something to eat, avoid my parents and run to lock myself in my room. I text Levi to tell him I was ready while I turn my computer on, and he doesn’t reply at first. Thinking he was probably on the bathroom or something, I decide to check my email and facebook to kill some time while he didn’t appear.

And then I realize it passed half an hour with no reply from him. I text him a second time and wait patiently, but nothing. He wasn’t online on skype and neither on facebook, and the anticipation was making me too anxious. Maybe he was planning some sort of surprise to me. At least I hope he did.

But nothing. I text him another time, send him a message on facebook and no reply. Maybe I was being a little too anxious, I should just wait. He was probably busy, maybe his uncle asked him to do something.

When it passes an hour and a half I decide to give him a call. The phone rings only a time and falls on voicemail, and that’s when I get seriously worried. I text him another time, asking him what happened, and when he doesn’t reply, I keep sending him texts.

It was weird enough already. Never something like this occurred, and it was worrying the shit out of me. So I text him saying I was heading over.

And I finally get a reply.

_“Don’t come. Nothing happened, I’m just tired and going to bed. I’ll talk to you later.”_

_“what??? of course something is going on, tell me!”_

_“Later we’ll talk, Eren. Good night, I’m turning my phone off.”_

_“If you turn your phone off I swear I’m coming over. what’s going on?? you disappeared for hours without saying anything… what happened to our plan?”_

_“I just can’t tonight, gosh, Eren. Later we’ll talk, okay?”_

Then I decide to call him again, and it falls on voice mail after a ring.

_“answer me, I want to hear you”_

_“shit Eren, just go to bed, alright?”_

_“what’s wrong with you so sudden? we were okay, everything was perfect, why are you acting like this?”_

_“it’s not about you, okay”_

_“then what is it?”_

He takes a while to reply, and just before I sent him another text, I finally get one from him.

_“I’m going to skype.”_

I throw my phone away and open skype to stare anxiously at his username until it turned online. Once he does, I click on it, opening the chat page. His webcam was off, so all I see is a black square in front of me.

 _“where are you??”_ I type.

_“I’m here.”_

_“turn on your webcam”_

_“you always act like a spoiled brat?”_

_“i’m not being spoiled, i just want to see you! stop acting weird!!”_

Then he finally turns on the camera. It takes a while to adjust to the lighting in his room, which was bad as hell, but I don’t have difficulties in seeing that he was crying and with a purple eye.

 _“you wanted to see me so much, now you keep staring at the screen with that stupid face”_ He types, chuckling wryly. _“Now you know what’s up.”_

I was in utter shock.

 _“what happened?”_ It’s all I manage to type.

 _“what always happens.”_ He chuckles again. His words struck me so strong I almost gasp.

_“your uncle?”_

_“who could it be?”_

_“but why?”_

_“he told me to get home and I didn’t see his text. guess I forgot I still need to worry about these things.”_

Anger starts growing within me. _“I don’t want to leave you there. can I come and get you?”_

_“that’s terribly not a wise idea. It’s ok, eren, I’m used to it.”_

He’s used to it. That makes me so pissed. _“you can’t be used to something like this. you need to get out of there.”_

_“unfortunately I don’t have many options. It’s not like I have anywhere to go, or I have any money or anyone that cares about me.”_

_“I care, and I’m willing to help.”_

He starts chuckling. _“please, eren.”_

_“I’m serious.”_

He pauses for some seconds, staring at me from his webcam. He stopped crying, but now he looked angry, for some reason.

 _“I envy you so much. I wish I had problems like yours. Worrying about college and the major you chose while you live in an amazing city, that’s awesome.”_ Levi types, making me surprised. _“Meanwhile I’m stuck in this town without any prospect of ever leaving, with an uncle that prefers I was dead and, just to add, completely broke. Your problems are so glorious compared to mine.”_

I’m left speechless. Levi was there, suffering in front of me, and I kept whining about my parents and other unimportant things. I acted so selfishly.

_“you could have opened up to me.”_

_“For what? What would telling you about this help?”_ He forces a chuckle. _“I’d be only whining about something that I can’t change.”_

_“you can change. there’s always a way.”_

_“You and your positive affirmations.”_ He shakes his head negatively. _“You’re the one to say, Eren. When you’re smart and have a family that supports whatever you decide to do – even though you say they don’t, you know they would. When your parents are alive, on the first place. When you have money.”_ He bites his lip. _“I’m just going to bed.”_

I’m not even able to ask him to stay before he goes offline. Everything he said keeps spinning in my head, and I suddenly start getting so embarrassed of myself.

All I did so far was whining about my life with him. My problems… Now that I think about them, they seem so stupid. Worrying about changing my major, when I should be happy that I have the opportunity of going to college. When I have all these opportunities while other people struggle in life only wishing they had troubles like mine.

I feel so stupid.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some more about Levi's life~  
> Hope you enjoy this chapter!

I wake up on the next morning and keep staring at my ceiling. Everything seemed so weird now, so empty. Like nothing matters as it mattered before.

I think about standing up, but then I don’t feel enough strength. All I could think is about how my life is perfect and how I should be happy with it, but I’m not. Am I that selfish? I must be really selfish and spoiled.

I should be happy and I’m not.

I listen to my parents talking to each other downstairs. I don’t pay attention to what they’re saying but hearing them fills my eyes with tears. What would it be like if I didn’t have them, like Levi doesn’t? Gosh, it hurts to imagine.

I can’t even size the pain Levi lives every day.

I probably spend over an hour in my bed, only lost in thoughts, until I decide to grab my phone and call Levi. I had to say something to him, apologize, I don’t know. I just like him too much to let things like this, to leave him sad.

The call rings only a time before he picks it up. He doesn’t say anything, but I hear his breath on the other side. He was probably crying as well.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I repeat. “I’m sorry for being so selfish and—“

“I’m the one who should apologize.” He interrupts me, his voice broke. “I snapped at you for no reason. I said all those mean things because I envy the life you have, and it was unfair.”

“But you were right. I was drowning into silly problems, and—“

“You’re allowed to have problems, Eren. Everyone has problems, and they’re different, but they always make us suffer. It’s wrong to compare them.”

It seems like Levi will always be a step in front of me.

“I’m still sorry.” I say. “I kept whining nonstop... It made it seem like I was complaining for no reason.”

“You were only complaining about some stuff. I never saw you being unthankful, and I can’t imagine you acting that way. You weren’t doing anything wrong.” He says, and my heart feel s a little lighter with that. “Besides, I could have complained about my life with you as well, and I know you’d hear me. I just fed my envy inside. I’m sorry.”

“Will you talk about your problems with me now?” I ask. “Please.”

“Maybe.” He sighs. “I just don’t want to argue with you for reasons that don’t even belong to us.”

“I don’t want to argue with you either.” I say, wanting to start crying again. “Can we meet?”

“I’ll see if I can get out. I want to see you too.”

We end the call and some minutes later Levi texts me saying that he managed to leave. I don’t hesitate a minute and get up, put on some clothes and go out as well.

We’d meet at the park, at our usual place. I get there and find Levi lying on the grass, looking to the sky with sunglasses on. I don’t say anything and lie by his side, looking to the sky as well.

“How’s your eye?” I decide to ask, still looking to the sky.

“It’ll be fine in some days.” He mumbles.

Before I said anything else, I notice that Levi hides his face with his left hand, and when I turn to look at him, I find him crying.

“Levi…” I grab his other hand and entwine our fingers.

“I hate this life so much.” He confesses between sobs, and it breaks my heart. “So fucking much.”

I press his hand stronger, feeling tears coming to my eyes as well. What should I tell him? What could I tell him? After all, I have no idea of the much he’s suffering.

To him, I have a perfect life. There’s nothing I could say to help him.

“I wish so much I could start again as someone else. Someone who has none of this shit.”

“Why don’t you save money and move away?” I suggest, hoping it could be useful.

“Don’t you think I’ve tried it?” He chuckles. “It was my dream. Until Uncle Kenny found out I was saving money and took it all.”

“Why did he do that?” That wasn’t something his uncle could do. He’s overage and he works. The money he gets is his for anything he feels like doing. “He can’t just simply take your money away.”

“It’s just the way he is. And he continues taking my money on the end of the month.” He shrugs. “I can’t go anywhere, I’m stuck.”

“That’s not right.” I grumble. “He can’t do that. Why don’t you talk about it with any other relatives?”

“Like Mikasa’s family?” He chuckles bitterly again. “They never accepted my existence. Mikasa’s father never accepted that my dad knocked up his little sister, which is my mom, when she was only 18.”

“Well, they might not accept how it happened, but they can’t simply ignore you.” I know Mikasa’s parents and they are the sweetest people in the world. I couldn’t imagine them denying helping anyone, even less if its family. “I bet they could help you, at least to put some sense into your uncle’s head.”

“Leaving me without money was their suggestion. Uncle Kenny only executes it.”

“Seriously?” That was something I would never expect from them; there had to be some kind of explanation. But before I said anything, Levi interrupts my trail of thoughts.

“If they cared about me, they’d have taken me in four years ago. But no, they left me with Uncle Kenny, who didn’t even like kids.”

“They… refused taking you in?”

“Basically, yeah.” He shrugs. “If Uncle Kenny had said no as well, I’d have gone to an orphanage, since I don’t have any other relative available. I’m kind of lucky that he felt bad for me. Like, my parents die out of the blue and no one wants me, that’s so cool.”

Knowing these things make me shocked. I had a completely different vision of Mikasa’s family, like they were great people and all. But, then, I’ve never heard of Levi, even though I’ve known Mikasa since we’re in junior high.

Does Mikasa knows about any of this? I’d be so disappointed if she knew and just decided to side with her parents.

People can be so fake.

“Can I ask something?” I ask softly and he nods. “How did they die?”

“It was a car accident.” He mumbles slowly. “They were coming to pick me up at school but never appeared.”

His life’s story only got worse whenever he told me any other detail. “That’s horrible.”

“Yeah.” He whispers. “I miss them so much.”

“I can imagine.”

He quietly sobs again, and I couldn’t just lie like that without hugging him. So I turn to the side to bring him closer and he grips my shirt. His sunglasses were keeping me from seeing his eyes, so I decide to pull them off and he allows it. The purple mark in his eye makes a tear roll from my eye, so I just hug him stronger.

I’d allow him to cry all he wanted now. And I’d be strong for him.

“You know…” He mumbles weakly after some minutes, so I gently pull away a bit to be able to face him. “When you told me that you study at NYU I almost had a stroke. I was so pissed with you, like ‘what the hell are you doing here?’”

“You actually asked me something like that.” I smile lightly.

“New York must be amazing.” He says. “I read so much stuff about it online… It’s so sad that it is so close to me but I will never go there.”

I can’t imagine how the place I spend most of the time can be a dream to him. Maybe the idea of going to New York has never been impossible to come true, so I never built expectations over it. “Of course you’ll go there. I’ll take you someday.”

“Yeah, right.” He chuckles. “My parents had their honeymoon there, I have some pictures of it. My mom was pregnant of me, so, in a way, I’ve been there already.”

“That’s true.” It was sweet the tone he used to talk about his parents.

“I want to visit the museums there. I’ve never been to a museum and I guess they’re the place I’d mostly enjoy going. But I can barely go out of home, when I’ll be able to go there to visit them?” I don’t have words to tell him. My mind still refused to see how stuck he was. Probably due to my freedom I couldn’t see someone’s cage. “I’m saying this but two years ago was even worse. I literally couldn’t get out, only to work and back. Uncle Kenny got much softer with me now.”

“But what did you do to make him treat you like that?” I decide to ask. “You don’t do anything wrong.”

He stays in silence for a few seconds. “He doesn’t like me. No one in my family likes me.”

I still couldn’t understand. Not liking him wasn’t a reason for treating him like trash. “You should—“

“Don’t.” He sighs tiredly. “Let’s just stop this for now, you must be sick already about my sob story.”

“Of course not, Levi.” I say seriously. “I want you to talk to me.”

He smiles softly, and it was the prettiest smile I’ve ever seen. “Sure, but for now it’s done. Okay?”

I inhale deeply. “Okay.”

“Then hug me.”

I do as he says and allow him to hide his face on my chest. While he calmed down, I start thinking in a way I could help him. It could seem pretentious to think I could do something to help him, but somehow I feel like that there was something within my reach.

I couldn’t make him totally happy, of course. But, at least, I could try bringing him out of this situation.

I could try helping him on his next jump.

We stay for more half an hour there like this, until Levi says that it’s better if he goes home. He wasn’t sure how mad was his uncle yet, so he shouldn’t provoke him by staying out until late. I only agree with that and take him home on my bike. The way he holds on me, griping my waist strongly from behind, makes me want to cry.

I didn’t want to leave him.

But then I do, since there wasn’t much I could do. We mumble sad goodbyes and I watch as he walks to his front door. He looks to me for a couple of seconds before closing the door, and my heart hurts in my chest.

I cycle slowly towards home, and, when I get there, I don’t feel strength to reply my parents when they ask me about dinner. I just mutter an “anything is fine” and head upstairs to lock myself in my room. I fall in my bed and one thought fills my mind.

What could I do to help Levi?

It was my objective now. Even if only a little, even if only a distraction from this world.

Anything will do.

While I was lost in thoughts, my mom calls me saying dinner is ready. I stand up lazily and take a look around my room. What could a spoiled brat like me do? I barely know about the real world, since I’ve always lived in this artificial reality my parents created for me.

Not that I blame them, far from that. Like Levi said, I’m really eternally thankful for them and all the opportunities they allowed me.

But that made me blind about a world outside.

Right before I left my room, I shot a glance to my wall and see the photos I hang there. The photos from high school, from my first week at college with my new classmates…

On a tour on New York, sightseeing. Visiting central park, the museums.

The museums.

Maybe it was bad, but an idea plops in my mind. It wasn’t much, but it was something, at least as a temporary distraction. As a way to show things could be possible.

I head to have dinner with only this idea in mind.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eren's cute idea :3  
> Nice reading!

I barely sleep at night, working on my idea. After dinner, I check online the amount of money I had in my savings account. My parents didn’t allow me to use it, only in extreme necessities, but this was almost an extreme necessity.

I had more than enough money.

Then I go on Google to search for hotels. There were so many options I feel lost. Maybe I should, before anything else, make the whole planning of places to go, and then research a hotel that wasn’t far from everything.

Damn, before anything else I had to check if his uncle would allow him to go. What if he didn’t? Gosh, only to think about needing his permission makes me angry. Levi is old enough to take care of himself, what was his family thinking?

But I would do things right. And I’d get him to go. So I try to force myself to sleep and wake up pretty early on the next morning to go to his house before work.

I start feeling nervous once I stop my bike in front of his house. Once I step in his porch, my heart starts pumping harshly in my chest. I could do this, I could talk to him. He couldn’t be a monster to strangers, right?

So I ring the doorbell and wait.

I hear some heavy steps from inside and the door suddenly opens. Luckily it was his uncle himself, I was afraid that Levi would answer the door and tell me to disappear.

“H-Hello.” I stutter. Gosh, his uncle was huge. And even scarier up close. “Hello, Mr. Ackerman.”

“Hello.” He scans me from head to toe. “Who are you?”

“I’m Eren Jaeger.” I promptly reply. “I work with Levi…”

“Uh-um.” Mr. Ackerman crosses his arms, not looking amused. “You’re a Jaeger? Son of the doctors?”

“Uh, yes, sir.”

“That’s interesting.” He nods.

That moment, Levi comes down the stairs, inside. And his expression of shock when he spots me there makes me swallow dry.

“What are you doing here?” He asks, running towards the door. He frowns deeply to me and turns to his uncle. “Uncle Kenny, I don’t know what he’s doing, but—“

“Stay quiet, Levi.” Mr. Ackerman says and Levi instantly freezes. “This is interesting. What brings you here, Mr. Jaeger?”

“I—I came here because, uh…“ I organize my thoughts, growing even more nervous with his stare. “Levi told me that his dream is to visit the art museums in New York, and, since I study in NYU, I was wondering if I could take him there for a city tour.”

“A NYU student, huh?” Mr. Ackerman stares at my face, then turns to Levi and nods to him. “So you found yourself a young sugar daddy?”

“It’s not like that—“ Levi says. “I didn’t even know he was planning this.”

Mr. Ackerman turns back to me and keeps staring at my face, almost digging holes in it. Until he suddenly uncrosses his arms. “Alright. You can take him.”

“Really?” Levi asks, shocked. “You’re allowing me to go?”

“Yeah. Maybe a good guy like this would put you in the line.” He shrugs. “But there’s conditions for that. Only during a weekend, I need to know the hotel you’re staying and I need proof from the reservations and tickets. And I’m going to call your parents, Mr. Jaeger.”

“Yes, sir.” I nod, happy. Gosh, I need to tell my parents as soon as possible.

“Is this all?”

“Y-Yes, sir.”

“Then you two need to go to work now.” He turns to Levi. “Go.”

Levi sighs and passes by him out of the house, and Mr. Ackerman slams the door behind him without even saying goodbye to us.

“What the hell, Eren?” Levi whispers to me. “Just what was that?”

“Calm down.” I chuckle. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yes, but what do you plan with this?”

“I plan to take you to New York for a weekend.” I place my hands in his arms and caress his skin.

“Where did you get money for that?"

“I have money saved, don’t worry. I just want to do this; let me do this.”

 He shakes his head negatively, looking somehow angry.

“Hey, just leave it all to me, okay? Trust me on this.”

“Why are you doing this?” He asks, facing me. “Just why?”

“Because I want to. Because I like you.”

He continues shaking his head in disbelief and bites his lower lip. But, then, he suddenly jumps on my arms for a hug. “You’re an idiot.”

I only chuckle with that and put my arms around him. “Maybe I am. But are you going to help me to choose a hotel and bus tickets?”

“Of course.”

We head to work and use the computer there to plan the entire trip. After we fit everything we could do on both days, I reserve a room at a hotel – a nice one, since this weekend should be special – and get the bus tickets for us. Levi keeps saying I should talk to my parents first before buying, but it would be actually easier to have everything settled already before telling them. They wouldn’t be able to argue much, then.

I head home after work and meet my parents in the kitchen. They seemed happy, which was a good sign, so I inhale deeply before calling their attention.

“What’s up, Eren?” Dad asks, turning to me with a worried expression.

“I, uh…” I stutter. I should just say it at once and not make a big deal of it. “I’m going to New York with Levi this weekend.”

“Who’s Levi?” Dad asks.

“Oh, that boy who came here that day?” Mom says.

“Yeah. He works with me, dad.”

“But why so sudden?” Dad continues.

“He’s never been there and his dream is to go to the museums… so I’m going to take him to a few, and maybe we could do some sightseeing...”

Mom and dad turn to each other. “Well, okay. Have you found a hotel and bus tickets already?”

“Yeah, I did.” I breathe out, relieved. The idea of not making a big deal of it worked well. “And, uh… His uncle might wanna talk to you before we go. He’s kind of strict.”

“Yes, sure.”

“Okay. Thanks.” I force a smile and turn to leave the kitchen.

As soon as I get in my room, I call Levi to tell him that his uncle could call my parents already. He gets impressed at how my parents were easy to deal with.

His uncle calls my house, my parents talk to him, and soon later Levi calls me again on my phone.

“Everything seems set.” He says. “I can barely believe it.”

“I told you it’d be fine.” I smile. “Now I’m anxious for the weekend.”

“Gosh, this was so sudden and fast that I barely had time to actually accept that I’m finally going there. And with you.” His tone sounds excited, and it gives me butterflies. “I don’t have words to tell you.”

“You don’t need to say anything.” I say softly. “I… I just wanted to do something.”

“Well, you’re doing something amazing. You can’t imagine how happy I am.”

“I was afraid your uncle wouldn’t allow you to go and then my plan would go down the drain.” I sigh. “I guess I’d kidnap you if that happened.”

“I wouldn’t mind being kidnapped by you.” He chuckles. “Gosh, I’m going to New York.”

“I hope its fun.”

“Of course it’ll be.” He says, infatuated. “New York is going to be my Paris.”

“Huh?” I frown, not getting what he meant.

“The song.” I could imagine him rolling his eyes at me as he chuckles. “ _Take me to Paris, let’s go there and never look back…”_

“Oh.” I nod, finally remembering. “Well, I wish I could really take you to Paris and we’d never look back.”

“This is amazing already. You’re fulfilling my dream and I don’t know how I’ll ever make it up to you.”

“You don’t need to.” I say softly. “Just continue dating me and that’s enough.”

He chuckles. “We’re dating?”

I didn’t mean to suggest that so suddenly like this, but I would take advantaged of my slip. “Do you want to?”

“Of course.”

“Then that’s it.”

Levi sounded so excited about this trip that I wish I could make it as memorable as I can. I wish we could spend the rest of the summer away, only enjoying each other and thinking about our lives. It would be a dream.

We end our calls and I remain lying on my bed, only thinking about the weekend. I was so happy to be doing something nice for Levi, even though it wasn’t much.

Then my phone suddenly starts ringing. I answer it imagining it was Levi, wanting to tell me something he remembered, but the voice that greets me wasn’t one I was expecting.

“Mikasa?” I almost gasp.

“I’ve heard. What are you doing, Eren?”

I feel lost for a few seconds. What was she talking about? “Enlighten me, please. I don’t know what you mean.”

“Uncle Kenny called my dad and told him that you’re taking Levi to New York this weekend. What the hell, Eren?”

“Uh…” I stutter. “I’m the one who should be asking what the hell. Why are you mad?”

“Where did you get this idea? You can’t spend a weekend with him like this.” She sighs, sounding so pissed that it worries me.

“Why can’t I?” I almost chuckle. This was so weird. “I just found out that Levi’s dream is to go to New York, so I’m taking him there. That’s all. Why are you so riled up?”

She pauses for a few seconds on the other end. “I’m worried.”

“Worried about what?”

“You don’t know anything about Levi.” She deadpans.

“Oh, right.” I laugh. Now she was pissing me off. “Of course I’m the one who knows nothing about him. I just see him every day and talk to him about everything, but of course you, that never actually spoke to him, knows more about him than me.”

She inhales soundly on the other end, probably like she did when she wanted to calm down. “Look, I’m sorry. Sorry for calling this way and sounding this weird…”

“You’re definitely sounding weird.” I shake my head. “What’s wrong with your family?”

“There’s nothing wrong with my family.” She says kind of harshly. “Just… Be careful on this trip, okay? Don’t do anything stupid. Levi may have some weird ideas…”

“He doesn’t have any weird idea as far as I know him.” I say. “You don’t need to worry.”

“Okay.” She sighs. “It’s this weekend, right?”

“Yeah.” I answer, not really wanting to.

“I hope you have a nice time.” She forces a sweet tone that gives me a knot on my stomach, like it had something so wrong behind all of this. “Bring me the postcard you promised but never brought.”

I try to lighten up my mood like she was doing. “Sure.”

She ends the call with only a soft goodbye. And I couldn’t be more fucked up about what just happened.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Their trip to New York! :33  
> Hope you enjoy this chapter ♥

Our bus was supposed to leave by nine am on Saturday, so I go catch Levi on his house around seven and we have to promise his uncle that we’d be back by midnight on Sunday, around the time the bus was supposed to arrive back. After another very awkward talk with him, he allows us to go, so Levi and I head to the bus station.

It was so exciting, so damn exciting. We go all the way there holding hands, and the wait for the bus makes our hands sweat in anxiety. But soon we’re inside it heading to New York.

Levi doesn’t get his eyes off the road, watching everything carefully and telling me every once in a while to see something we were passing by. But I’ve seen this road so many times that I start feeling sleepy, so soon I fall asleep by resting my head on his shoulder. I only wake up again when we’re already in New York.

We grab our bags – we only brought two small backpacks, we didn’t need much stuff – and head to the subways. Levi doesn’t let go of my hand and allows me to guide his way, since he’d be pretty much lost alone. I find it adorable and even show him some stuff on our way to the hotel.

And the hotel. Gosh, it looked awesome from outside, and even Levi feels uneasy with how expensive it looked. We get in, get our reservations and head to our room. And it was huge, with even a kitchen.

“Oh god.” Levi walks around the room while I close the door. “We should have got a smaller room.”

“Of course not, this is awesome!” I walk to the bedroom. “Check this bed!”

I throw myself on it without waiting for him, but soon he comes into the room and does the same. We moan in pleasure like idiots.

“So soft…” Levi rolls towards me and rests his head on my shoulder.

“I don’t want to stand up again.” I say, putting an arm around him.

“I wouldn’t mind staying here during the whole weekend.” He sighs.

“We need to follow our schedule… we have two museums to go today.”

“Hm…” He stretches and finally sits up. “Well, we better go before we enroll in other activities.”

“Like what?” I ask stupidly as I sit up as well.

He only glares at me and stands up. “Let’s go, I’m hungry.”

We take off some stuff from out bags and head out again. The first museum we’d go was the Museum of Modern Art, which was quite far but we could get there easily by subway. We find something to eat on the way and get there with plenty of time to see everything and still check the other museum later.

Levi looks so amazed all the time that I barely focus on the works and only observe his reactions. Everything seems so new and wonderful to him that it makes my heart melt.

The second museum of the day was The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was probably going to be his favorite. And, yeah, it is so much that we stay there until an hour from closing time.

Especially the paintings from Auguste Renoir get his attention. He stops in front of “Two young girls at the piano” and analyzes carefully every single detail he could. I’m not that interested in paintings, but waiting for him doesn’t bore me. I’m very interested in watching him, anyway.

We leave the museum and decide to walk to the hotel, since it wasn’t much blocks away. And we could eat something and visit some stores on the way there. Levi was gaping at how big everything was. The small stores of our town couldn’t even compare.

I buy Mikasa’s postcard, we get some souvenirs – like a necklace of the statue of liberty with our names written under it – and decide to call it a day.

We head back to the hotel. Levi goes straight to the room and I walk behind him, anxious to take off my sneakers.

“What about we try that bathtub now?” Levi suggests.

“Sure!” I sit on the side of the bed and get my sneakers off. “But wait, at the same time?”

“Of course.” He blinks, walking to the bathroom. “Come on.”

Gulping dryly, I follow him there and find him already filling the bath with warm water. I look to the sink and find some free samples there, and one read bubbles. “Hey, we can use this.”

He turns to me and I wave the package to him. “Yeah, a bubble bath like kids will be nice.”

“Come on, it’s fun.” I pout.

“I’m just kidding, I like bubbles.” He stands up. “Well, it’s almost full, let’s get in?”

Before I reply, he takes off his shirt over his head, and since I was staring, he throws it at me. I have to think quickly to grab it.

“Stop looking at me with that face and undress.” He unties his belt and opens his zipper. “Come on.”

I hesitate a bit before putting his shirt over the sink and following to remove mine as well. Once I take it off, I find him already in his underwear in front of me, following to remove them. I freeze.

“What?” He asks playfully. “You thought we’d go in our underwear?”

I gulp dryly again. “Yeah…”

He only smirks and removes it completely. I try to look away but the corner of my eyes manages to catch a glimpse. Oh.

“I better get in before you have a stroke.” He turns around and carefully slips in the bath. “Come on.”

I don’t say anything and continue undressing. Before I took off my underwear, I notice him staring at me. “Could you turn around?”

“No, I wanna see it.” He deadpans.

“I’m not comfortable with that yet.” I blush. “Please?”

Sighing, he turns to the wall. “Fine. I’ll be seeing it later today anyway.”

I blush even harder as I take it off and quickly walk to the bath to get in, on the opposite side Levi was. He instantly turns to me when I sit and tries to catch a glimpse through the water. I lift my leg. “Hey!”

“You’re really big.” He grins. “Where are the bubbles?”

His perversion would make me go crazy. I stretch my arm to grab the package and open it to put on the water, and so we agitate it until there were plenty of bubbles covering us.

“This feels nice.” He lies back and stretches his legs over me. I grab them and put to the side before his feet touched anywhere uncomfortable.

“Yeah.” I do the same but much more carefully and stretch my legs to his side, trying to not touch him at all.

We relax for a few minutes, not saying anything. I close my eyes and only feel the warm water around my body, and when I was about to snooze, I sense Levi moving and open my eyes again.

“I don’t want to be so away from you.” He says, coming to my side.

“Hey, I barely fit here alone—“

“Open your legs.”

I don’t at first, so he forcefully pushes my legs open and sits between them, resting his back on my chest. Oh. I blush so hard I was really going to have a stroke.

“This feels better.” He finds a comfortable position and grabs my arms to put around his body. Oh my god.

If I relaxed now I’d totally get hard, since my thing was totally against his ass and oh my god. So I continue tensed up and try not thinking about anything at all.

But then he moves again, and his ass grinds against me and I have to cover my face, almost exploding.

“Are you okay?” He looks to me from over his shoulder, grinning.

“You totally want to kill me.” I mumble behind my hand.

“Of course not.” He moves again on purpose. “Why are you holding yourself?”

“This was supposed to be an innocent bath.” I say, uncovering my face.

“Did you really think that?” He lifts an eyebrow, amused. “Don’t worry; I think sex in a bathtub is disgusting. We won’t do anything here.”

“Then stop teasing me before I grow a boner here.” I beg.

“Okay, alright.” He chuckles.

He lies back against me and slides a bit so his ass wasn’t touching me anymore. I inhale deeply, calming myself, and hug his body stronger.

When our fingers were already wrinkling we decide it was enough time on the water and leave the bathtub. Levi leaves first and I catch a glimpse of his ass again and oh god. It makes me blush so hard. He covers himself with a robe and leaves to the bedroom, so I grab the other robe and do the same.

“I feel so good…” I hear him saying as I leave the bathroom and find him dropping himself on the bed.

“Me too.” I smile and walk to the bed to do the same.

The mattress was so comfortable I could fall asleep as I was. I even close my eyes for a few seconds, but open them when I sense Levi moving besides me. He sits up and stares at my face, and as I was about to ask him if he wanted anything, he starts untying his robe.

“L-Levi…” I gasp, sitting up.

“Just shut up.” He demands, but he didn’t sound angry.

He finishes untying it and gets it slowly off his shoulders. I watch that as I was watching the most incredible thing I ever saw in my life, and, in fact, maybe it really was. He doesn’t break eye contact with me for any second, and I wish I could correspond that, but I can’t help averting my gaze to his uncovered body. Noticing how distracted I was, he chuckles lightly and removes it at once to throw it besides the bed.

My mouth drops. But I only start trembling and sweating when he bends closer and starts untying my robe as well. Since I couldn’t remain frozen stupidly all the time, I decide to help him with the task and take it off quicker to throw it away as well.

“Good.” He smiles softly.

He kisses me by pulling at the back of my neck and I correspond messily, since I was so nervous and all. But that didn’t bother him, and the next thing he does is coming to my lap and woa. This was really happening.

He fits perfectly over me and presses his legs around my body, so I put my hands around his waist to hold him closer. I try not to think too much about how our intimacies were almost rubbing together and relax by drowning myself in his kisses.

The rest goes so naturally I don’t even feel nervous anymore. We kiss a lot, and then kiss a lot while touching, and I discover that he likes when I caress his thigh and he notices that I like when he bites my neck and things start heating up until we’re both hard and we had to do something about it.

Levi pulls my leg like trying to mention me to open them and I do, so he sits between them and grabs my cock and I shiver completely. I lose it completely when he starts masturbating me.

“Do you like this?” He whispers in my ear, grabbing the back of my neck with his free hand.

“Gosh, Levi…” I breathe heavily. “I’m about to—“

Two strokes later and I come hot in his hand. He looks down and grins. “Not bad.”

And I leave my perplexed state and blush hard. “H-hey, stop staring…” I try to cover myself with my hand.

“Tsk, I’ve already seen it all.” He chuckles and removes his legs from around me to stand up. “Stay there.”

He follows to the bathroom to wash his hand and comes back with a roll of toilet paper.

“You might want this.” He throws it at me and I have to think quickly to grab it.

I blush even harder and take a piece to, uh, clean myself. Once I was done he was already on the bed again and crawling towards me, so I throw the roll away.

“I need some attention.” He pushes me against the mattress and climbs over my body.

We kiss for a while, until I decide to sit up again and keep him on my lap. He places his arms over my shoulders and finds a good position, while I kiss his neck and trace my way down with my hand.

I repeat everything he did with me, so I wouldn’t do anything wrong. But Levi’s reaction is something else. He holds me stronger and starts moaning loud, and even though it makes me kind of embarrassed, it was so sexy that I almost find myself getting hard again. And when he comes, oh god… He looks so hot that I couldn’t believe that I was the one making him feel that way.

“You’re good with your hands.” He mutters heavily.

I lie us down again and stay in his front. Levi grabs the toilet paper and I clean my hand while he cleans himself, and when everything was a little less stickier, I cover our bodies with the duvet and we cuddle.

“This feels so… Gosh, I can’t even put it into words.” I grab his hand and entwine our fingers together. “Never imagined touching someone would be this good.”

“Late bloomer grew up.” He grins.

“You’re a virgin as well.” I chuckle. “How can you be so okay with sex like this?”

He glances down for a couple of seconds before eyeing me again. “I just like you a lot, so it’s okay.”

I lift his hand to kiss it and put his arm around my neck. We kiss softly and lazily and I didn’t want it to end.

Our skin against each other would drive me crazy. “I feel like I’m in heaven. This white room, these white sheets, you, my angel…”

“Lame dumbass.” He chuckles. “You’re the angel here.”

“Of course not. You’re the angel.” I grin. “Look at your face, you’re so beautiful…”

“Believe me, you’re the angel.” He insists. “You’re my angel, you saved me.”

I think about all the hardships Levi has to be through and my heart clutches in my chest. I wish I could make things different for him.

“Soon you’ll leave that house and you’ll find a place for you. I’ll help.” I caress his cheek. “Things will be okay.”

He doesn’t reply, lost in thoughts, so I wait.

“Let’s not talk about this stuff now.” He cuddles closer. “Just recover quickly for a second round.”

I can’t help laughing. “I don’t know if I can handle another round now.”

“Weak.” He bites his lower lip. “Okay, tomorrow, then.”

“Sure.”

We get comfortable besides each other and I stretch my arm to turn off the lamp.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second day of their trip to New York.  
> Hope you enjoy this chapter :3

I wake up and find myself in a side of the bed and Levi on the other, like we probably separated during the night since it wasn’t that comfortable to sleep cuddling. Still with lazy movements, I stretch and move to his side to hug him from behind and start kissing his neck.

“Hmm, Eren…” He drowsily mumbles.

“Good morning, beautiful.” I continue kissing, moving up until his ear.

“This is a good way to wake up.” He turns to me a little and finally opens his eyes. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I smile sheepishly.

We stare into each other’s eyes for more than a couple of seconds. His always-glassy eyes and his smudged eyeliner tempt me too much, so I bend down and kiss him on the lips.

“Ready for the second round?” I grin.

“I need to take a shower first, I’m still sticky.” He yawns.

“You’ll get sticky again, so take it later.” I bend down to kiss his neck

I manage to win him by insistence – or maybe because I start touching him and he’s unable to resist – and we roll around in bed for half an hour. Seeing him moaning with the sunlight coming from between the curtains was a much better sight, and I guess that he likes how I watch him so closely. Well, he obviously does, since he gets even louder to provoke me.

Once we’re both done and breathing heavily, we rest for some minutes until he sits up to finally take his shower.

“Can I go with you?”

“I want to take a real shower.” He chuckles.

“I can wash your back.” I grin, lifting my hand to caress his arm. “I don’t want to stop touching you.”

“You’ll touch me when I smell like flowers. And you as well.”

I pout as he stands up, wrapped in a blanket, and knees in front of his bag lying half open on the floor to grab his clean clothes.

“I won’t take long.” He stands up again and walks to the bathroom.

He doesn’t mind closing the door, so I hear perfectly as he turns the shower on and steps under it. I wish I could join him, but I’d allow him his privacy.

I was still too lazy, but I think I should stand up and get my clothes to shower after him. So I put on my underwear and go to my bag, which was now under Levi’s, to grab my clothes. That’s when I notice that his sketchbook was slipping out of his bag. I glance quickly to the bathroom and decide to peek inside to see some of his drawings.

The first pages were filled with beautiful sceneries. I recognize the park, the store, his house, a building that seemed to be his school… and then there’s a long set of drawings from the bridge that marks the entrance of our town, in every different angle he could draw. Even from above it, showing the water below, painted in a dark blue watercolor ink. It was beautiful.

When the drawings of the bridge end, though, I find a page all written up. I glance behind again, only to make sure that he couldn’t see me, and turn my attention back to the page to begin reading. I don’t know if I should have done that.

It was a suicide note. _“Today, July 3, I’m going to jump off Maple’s Bridge.”_

It was exactly my first day working at the store.

I can’t move, even though I hear the shower being turned off. I hear him dressing up inside the bathroom and all I can do is hold that sketchbook, with tears filling my eyes.

“Hey, we need to decide where we’re—“ He interrupts his words when he steps out of the bathroom and sees me there, sitting on the floor, staring at that page. “What are you doing?”

“Is it true?” I lift my head and stare at his face, not holding back my tears anymore. “Is it true, Levi?”

He doesn’t say anything and only comes to knee on the floor beside me, grabbing the sketchbook from my hands and stuffing it back in his bag. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Were you really going to jump off that bridge?” He doesn’t reply and doesn’t look to me, but I see his expression squirming. “Levi… Please, talk to me.”

He hesitates, putting his dirty clothes back inside his bag with annoyance.  I lift my hand to touch his arm and he stops, biting his lower lip. “Yes, it’s true.”

Hearing it from his lips impacts me much more than reading. “Why?”

“I had everything settled.” He looks to the floor, nervous. “I’ve been to that bridge about ten times before deciding that I would jump off it. I don’t know how to swim and probably only the impact with the water would make me black out. It was perfect. A quick death, without any mess.”

I was in shock. “But why, Levi?”

“Why do you think, Eren?” He sniffs. “I went to work meaning to leave that note on the drawer. I was going to head straight to the bridge after work. But then Hanji came in with you, and I saw you and thought I was seeing a miracle, I don’t know. Something changed. And you insisted on taking me home after work, like you were really an angel and were stopping me from doing that.”

It was hard to grasp all that stuff. “So you gave up… because of me?”

“You stopped me, and I finally had something to look forward to. Seeing you. I looked forward to that every day. You’re really my angel.” He cleans his face with the back of his hand.

What if I hadn’t been so eager to get that job? What if I arrived there on Tuesday? What if I never called Ms. Zoe on that day?

Would Levi still be here? Would I still have the chance of meeting him by coincidence around town?

Or would I have only known days later about a guy who jumped off the bridge?

“Don’t make that face, please.” He was staring at me now. “I know what you’re thinking, and this is why I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want to put this weight on your shoulders.”

“I can’t stop thinking about everything that brought me to step into the store on that day. What would have happened if I didn’t.”

“Nothing would have happened. I’d only be dead and you wouldn’t have met me.”

That strikes my chest like a knife. Levi… Levi was everything now. I couldn’t imagine not meeting him.

“Our timing was just… Perfect.” He says, shrugging and sniffing. “And that’s it.”

I pull him into a hug, not wanting to think about it anymore. All I can think is how I couldn’t have jumped more correctly than I did.

“You’re safe with me now.” I whisper in his ear. “I’m not leaving you.”

He clutches the front of my shirt stronger when I say that. “I hope not.”

We remain hugging for some minutes, until I decide it was time to cheer things up. We were still on our special weekend, and we should enjoy. There wasn’t time to feel sad. “Come on, let’s go make some special memories.”

Levi cleans his face with his hand and passes his fingers to clean the tears away from my face as well. “You’re right.”

I could understand why Levi didn’t want me to know that. Now I couldn’t deal with the idea of not having met him. I guess all I could do is thanking how things happened so perfectly to bring us together.

Since we were leaving this night, we check out of the hotel and take our backpacks with us. We had some options of places to go today, but we decide to visit The Museum of Natural History – Levi says he couldn’t leave without going to it – and we spend the rest of the day on Central Park, until the time to catch the bus back. The skeletons of the dinosaurs don’t cease to amaze me, and Levi seems to be into dinosaurs as much as I do. We stroll around the entire museum without rush and leave on the afternoon, craving to eat something. I take Levi to a restaurant nearby, which I knew to be very good, and later we go take our walk on Central Park.

We walk hand in hand through one of the ways, not caring much where it leads us.

“It passed so fast.” Levi mumbles in a moment, sighing.

“Yeah.” I nod, sad. “I wish we could stay longer.”

“Me too. I still want to go to Empire State to see the town from above. It must be beautiful.”

“It is. Next time I’ll take you there.”

He turns to me with a soft smile. “I’m counting on that.”

“It’s a promise.”

I guess it wasn’t too soon to make promises; it wasn’t like I didn’t intent to make them come true.

Levi and I met just a little over a month ago, but I feel like we’ve known each other since always. It was weird. I think about asking if he feels the same way, but then he suddenly stops and brings me into a kiss and I don’t need an answer anymore. I just knew he felt the same way.

After our calm walk on the park, we walk to the bus terminal – it wasn’t a short walk, but Levi says he wants to say goodbye to the town and I couldn’t refuse that – and we arrive there almost on time for the bus.

It was sad that we were already leaving, but we’d surely come back later.

We arrive in our hometown half before midnight, so we have to run to Levi’s home. And I insist on going with him, to show his uncle that he could trust me.

Once we get there, we find his uncle already by the porch, smoking a cigar. He puts it on the ashtray once he sees us and stands up, checking the time on his wristwatch.

“Just in time.” He tells us. “Had fun?”

“Yeah.” Levi says, uncomfortable.

“Good. Then you two should sleep now, you still have work tomorrow.” He says sharply. “Levi, come on in.”

Sighing, Levi turns to me. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. See you too.”

We couldn’t kiss and neither hug, so we only wave short goodbyes and Levi heads into his house. It was over.

I grab my bike from the tree I left it when I came and cycle home slowly. When I arrive, mom and dad were watching a movie on the living room, and they only ask me if the trip was fine. I tell them it was and head to my room to lock myself.

All I can think before falling asleep is in how much I wanted Levi to be here with me.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter until the end!  
> Get your hearts ready ;_;

The next day is exactly like the previous ones. And the day after as well. Levi and I couldn’t stop talking about the trip, like it was the most wonderful event in our lives. And maybe it really was.

The week passes without any special occurrence. We continue stopping to make out a little on the park after work, we still kiss behind the checkouts, we still call each other every night before sleeping. But now that we were seriously dating each other, everything felt sweeter and safer. Like we could relax with each other. And that was amazing.

On Friday, Mikasa says that Armin finally could go out with us, so we settle to meet at the cinema on Saturday – yeah, on that same wrecked one that Levi and I made out the other day. I didn’t feel very excited to spend a day with them, especially because that kept me from seeing Levi, but I go anyway. At least I could give Mikasa her postcard and they probably wouldn’t ask me to go out with them for the rest of the summer.

We eat some hot dogs, Armin tells us everything about his college, Mikasa says everything about her classmates and her new crush and I didn’t feel like telling them anything but I’m forced to. I don’t prolong anything, I just say what Mikasa already knew about not feeling well on that major, and Armin tries to cheer me up but it only makes me feel worse.

I wish I could be enjoying college like they were.

After all that conversation, we watch a bad movie and Armin has to leave right after it ends. “Don’t disappear, Eren!” He says as he waves.

“I won’t.” I reply, trying to sound excited.

“Yeah yeah, right.” He chuckles, walking off.

Mikasa and I head back home in silence. I wanted to accelerate my steps, so I’d get home sooner and would call Levi, but she walks so calmly that I don’t have the guts of rushing things.

“You’re kind of off.” She says suddenly.

“Am I?” I shrug, chuckling.

“Totally.” She lifts an eyebrow. “Thinking about something in particular?”

“No, no, not at all.” I try to brush it off, feeling awkward.

“You didn’t even want to talk about your situation with Armin. Have you decided what you’re going to do? Summer break is ending, soon classes will start…”

“Oh, don’t even mention that.” The last thing I wanted to think about is classes. I haven’t decided anything yet, and I didn’t accept the fact that I’d have to leave Levi to go to a place I didn’t even want to be. “Guess I’ll just see how things will go.”

“That’s very like you.” She laughs. “But you have to make a decision, otherwise you’ll end the same way you were.”

“Yeah.”

Then my phone starts vibrating in my pocket, and I quickly grab it. It was a text from Levi, all in caps lock.

_“MY UNCLE IS GOING TO BE OUT FOR A WHILE!!! GET YOUR ASS HERE RIGHT NOW”_

My heart flutters in my chest as I put my phone back in my pocket. Mikasa eyes me curiously. “I got to go.” I say before she asked.

“Did something happen?”

“No, no, I just…” I start walking back way. “I’ll see you later.”

Then I turn around and run like crazy. Yeah, I was that anxious.

And I get to Levi’s house and find him waiting by the door. He only opens it completely for me, then we shut it closed with a bang and start kissing.

“My room—“ He points to the stairs.

I don’t know how we manage to get upstairs without rolling down. I only spare a quick glance around Levi’s room, since I’ve never been there – it was very simple, just some posters around and a wardrobe – and we fall in his bed, already undressing.

Once we’re completely naked, Levi switch positions with me and gets on top of me. The view of him sitting on my crotch was very pleasing.

“Want to try something new, Eren?” He asks, biting his lower lip.

“Uh, yeah.” I grin.

Then he bends down and, uh, gives me a blowjob. Of course I watch, and of course it was the hottest thing in the world. I was too horny to stop him to ask about a condom, and he didn’t seem to worry about that.

I don’t last long, so he bends up again.

“Geez Levi…” I breathe heavily as he lies above my body. “Just geez.”

“Don’t have a stroke, I still need you.” He chuckles.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll do anything you want.” I embrace him, caressing his back.

He lifts his head to face me with devious eyes. I really wonder how he learnt to make such hot faces.

“How about getting inside me?”

I almost instantly get hard again after hearing that.

“I might hurt you.” I say, trying to control my anxiety. “And I, uh, don’t have any condoms…”

“Do we need that?” He bends down again and starts kissing my neck. “We’re both virgins…”

As much as I wanted to simply say ‘yeah, let’s do it’ I just couldn’t bring myself to. That was way too much. “I could go buy one…” I end saying.

“No, then forget it. I don’t know when my uncle will come back, and I don’t want to waste any time.” He says, sounding pretty frustrated.

His tone almost makes me want to change my mind, but I brush the thought away. And another thought soon gets its place. “Well, I could finger you.” I suggest in a whisper.

He lifts his head again, grinning. “That’ll do.”

And, yeah, we enjoy it as we could. I’d actually enjoy doing anything naked with Levi, so, for me, it was awesome enough. Only when I finger him that I notice how much he likes it, so now I know he’s really anxious for some real action.

After the excitement goes away, we only cuddle, still kissing softly, until we hear his uncle’s car getting in the garage and I have to dress quickly to get out of there. It was kind of tricky to leave using the tree in front of his window, but I manage to go down without a scratch.

I walk home feeling in heaven. Being with Levi made me forget all of my problems and believe life could really get better, somehow.

But the feeling lasts only until I get home and see Mikasa waiting me by the porch.

“Mikasa?” I walk towards her, frowning.

She stands up and walks towards me as well, looking serious.

“I have something to tell you.” She says with her voice tremble. “I—I followed you. I know what you and Levi are doing and I need to warn you about something.”

I feel my cheeks heating up with her statement.

“What—what do you mean?” I chuckle, trying to seem confused.

“It’s okay, Eren, really.” She says, and I freeze. “If it was any guy in the world I’d totally support you. But it’s Levi, and there’s something you need to know.”

“What is it, Mikasa?” I get anxious.

She pauses, looks around, and seems to be trying to find a way to tell me. It only makes me even more anxious, what the hell she needed to tell me about Levi? He told me everything about his life already, it couldn’t be something I didn’t know.

“Look…” She begins, whispering.  “I’m going to say this because you’re my best friend and I love you. And I don’t want to see you in danger.”

“You’re creeping me out.”

“You need make sure you’re always safe with Levi.” She deadpans. “If you know what I mean.”

What the hell. “Mikasa, what are you saying? I’m not thirteen.”

“He has a past, okay?” She sighs deeply.

“What?” I laugh. “Mikasa, I don’t know why you and your family hate him so much, but I won’t tolerate that you throw me lies about him like this.”

She pauses for a few seconds, staring at my face. Her expression didn’t seem angry and neither nervous. It was like she pitied me. “He made himself look like a saint to you, didn’t he?”

I stutter for a few seconds, the words failing to come out of my mouth. “W-What do you mean?”

She looks to the side again. “I imagined. No one would date him knowing what he did.”

I gasp, but don’t say anything.

“Levi has always been a troublemaker, since he was little. And when he got into Abbey High, he finally met his crew of troublemakers.” She starts saying, and I try to keep myself focused in her words, even though my mind couldn’t conjecture everything yet. “That’s what killed his parents, after all.”

“What?” I frown. “Didn’t they die in a car accident going to pick him up at school?”

“Yeah…” She sighs. “Going to pick him up because he was smoking weed on the rooftop.”

I step back with that. Just what the hell.

“You don’t know Levi at all.” Mikasa notices how shocked I look and steps closer to me. “He spiraled out of control after their deaths. And that’s how he got involved into some bad things…”

“Bad things like what? 

“He sold himself, if I can put it in these words.”

Something clicks within me when she says that. I still didn’t want to believe, but I can’t deny it clicks. “What the fuck are you saying, Mikasa?”

“He started doing that at his school, then to pretty most anyone. After a while the school found out and he was kicked out. And, well, you can imagine Uncle Kenny didn’t get any pleased by knowing that…” She explains, letting her gaze fall to the ground.

Suddenly everything Levi told me breaks apart. It was like I found a missing piece of his life, and it explained some things I couldn’t explain yet about him.

But… could he really have lied to me? He said he was inexperienced like me. Would he really make this thing up like this? “That can’t be true.” I chuckle, shocked.

“It is. Uncle Kenny found the money he got while doing that and it was a lot. He said he was saving to run away…” She says.

I was about to start crying. He couldn’t have lied to me, he couldn’t.

But everything keeps coming back to my head. His anxiety about sex, how he seemed unashamed and bold for someone inexperienced. How he seemed to know about things, even though he said he never experienced any of it.

And then I think about the amount of other men that might have touched him the same way I did and feel sick. He lied, he made up a life he didn’t have to me. For what?

What was his intention with this?

“Are you okay?” Mikasa puts her hand on my shoulder. “Eren…”

“This can’t be true, Mikasa. This can’t.” I start crying. “If this is, he lied so much to me…”

“I wish it wasn’t, but it is.” Mikasa seems hurt.

I didn’t know what to think anymore. All I needed now was to hear from his mouth if this was true.

 “I should go talk to him.” I sniff and clean my eyes. “I need to hear this from him.”

“Okay.” Mikasa says.

I turn around without saying goodbye to her and grab my phone from my pocket to call him.

“Hey Dopey.” He replies happily.

“We need to talk.” I say, controlling my urge to start crying.

He pauses for a while on the other side, and I notice his breathing gets heavy. “What happened?”

“Not by the phone, in person, now.” I say. “Meet me right now.”

“I—Gosh, Eren, what’s happening?”

I end the call then, not having any strength to continue talking to him through the phone. Since his house was only a few blocks away, I continue walking there. Walking with weak steps, like my legs didn’t believe this was going on.

He lied to me. All this time I’ve been with someone that’s nothing like I thought he was.

How could I believe anything else? When he said he liked me? When he pretended to be happy when he saw me? 

I find him on the street already, when I turn on his block. All the tears I held on the way here start falling from my eyes.

“Eren…” He walks to me, but I don’t let him touch me. “What happened?”

“You’re a fucking liar.” I grumble. “How could you have lied to me?”

“Calm down and explain to me what’s going on!”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I mean.” I force a laugh and clean some tears from my face. “Inexperienced my ass. I can’t believe I did all those things with you.”

He freezes when I say that. He freezes and doesn’t say a word. Somehow I still wanted him to deny it all, say it was all a big misunderstanding. But he doesn’t. “You fucking slut.”

“Don’t, Eren.” His always glassy eyes break then, and he starts crying.

“I believed you. How could you do this to me?” I was so angry that my head was starting to ache. “Oh, right, maybe you did this all just as a big plan of yours. You made this entire act just to get me to help you leaving, isn’t it? Because I think you’d do anything to leave.”

“It’s nothing like that. You’re the first guy I ever liked.”

“Please, don’t bullshit me.”

“I’m not proud of what I did, okay? That’s why I lied to you.” He explains, trembling. “I was desperate, my parents had just died and no one wanted me. But it didn’t work, and it only made things worse.”

I was too angry to be moved by his sob story. His lie couldn’t be justified by that. “How many were?”

He pauses and bites his lip. “A few.”

“Like five? Ten? Did you, at least, select them or you simply got anyone that was interested?” I ask with a shrug, and he only keeps eyeing me. “How much did they pay you?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He shakes his head. “I just want to erase that like it never happened.”

“But it did happen and you won’t ever erase how dirty you are.”

He sniffs, biting his lip again, but the sight doesn’t change how I feel. 

“Look, if you’re worried about that, Uncle Kenny made me do exams and I’m clean.” He says, and a tear rolls off his eye. “Do you remember what you said, when you just arrived, about being desperate and jumping to any opportunity that appeared only to leave a situation? That’s what I did, exactly. And it was a wrong jump.”

“I don’t know who you are anymore.” I stare at his face.

“I’m the same Levi, Eren.”

“You’re not. I don’t know you.” I step behind, getting away. “I don’t know if I can trust you ever again.”

“Don’t do this, please.”

He tries to grab my arm but I harshly get away from him. “I’m going home.”

“Eren…”

I turn around and continue walking, even though I hear him breaking down behind me. Nothing makes me stop. I was so broken and hurt that nothing made me worry about him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading so far!  
> I hope to see you guys next week on the last chapter :3


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the last chapter, guys! I really hope you enjoy reading :3

I wake up with a headache after being able to sleep for only an hour. Or even less than that.

I head to the bathroom, take a quick shower to relax and try not to think about anything. I wasn’t hungry, so when I go to the kitchen I only drink a cup of water and go back to my room.

Everything I’ve been through with Levi keeps spinning in my head. The day we met, how we started getting along with each other, our first kiss. Our second kiss, and third, and when we couldn’t stop anymore. When we called each other before sleeping just to listen to each other’s voices.

It was all so real, we both felt it so strongly. Why did he lie to me?

I have to admit that I’m not sure if everything would be the same if he had told me. That’s what makes me feel worse.

We looked so meant to be. And it was all a lie.

Was it really all a lie? Could a feeling so strong be faked like this?

Because I couldn’t stop believing in us, even though I wanted to.

I badly move from my bed the entire day. When the sun was about to disappear in the sky, someone rings the doorbell. I continue lying in my bed, only hearing the movements downstairs. My mom answers the door and a strong voice greets her from outside. Recognizing almost instantly that tone, I stand up and walk downstairs slowly to check what was going on.

“Yes, he didn’t come back yet.” Like I imagined, it was Mr. Ackerman on the other side, and once he sees me, he breaths deeply. “You really didn’t hear from him?”

“Levi?” I ask, confused. “No, last time I saw him was yesterday…”

“Jesus Christ, where did this kid go…” He passes a hand through his hair. “Well, I’m sorry for bothering you. But Eren, if you see him, please let me know.”

“Of course.” I say, paralyzed. Levi was missing?

“If you need help with anything, you can count with us, Mr. Ackerman.”

“Thank you.”

He walks back to his car and my mom closes the door, looking to me.

“Don’t you have any idea where he could have gone to?” She asks me. “I imagine how his uncle is worried.”

I find it pretty ironic that he was worried, but decide to ignore. “I don’t know… When did he disappear?”

“Mr. Ackerman said he didn’t come home yesterday. Did he mention to you any plans of running away?”

“No…” My stomach drops, and I feel it throbbing. “He didn’t.”

“Let’s hope he appears soon.” She smiles apologetically to me.

She walks back to the living room and I continue standing in the middle of the stairway, perplexed. He didn’t go back home.

My heart starts hurting in my chest as I grab my phone to call him. Voicemail. The pain grows, stabbing me like a knife. Levi, where did you go?

In a flash I remember what I found out in New York. And then I storm out of my house, grab my bike and cycle as fast as I can.

He couldn’t have done that, he couldn’t. No, Levi, please.

The bridge was kind of far from my house, but I cycle so fast that I manage to get there in around twenty minutes. I go along the passenger way while the sky was getting darken and darken.

And I see him there, sitting over the edge after the security fence, eyeing the water. I leave my bike and let it fall on the ground, and the noise calls his attention. He was crying.

“What are you doing here?’ He asks, drying his face and sniffing.

“Your uncle came to my house looking for you.” I say, walking closer to the security fence.

“That’s adorable.” He chuckles ironically. “So you came here to make sure I don’t kill myself because of you?”

I have no words to answer that.

“Don’t worry. My life is overall shitty, it wasn’t your fault. I just thought I had a chance when I met you.”

“Where did you stay during the night?” I ask dumbly.

“Walking around. Going to the park and then here.” He shrugs. “There’s not much places to go, and I don’t have any money to get on a bus to anywhere.”

I wanted to say something, but everything sounded stupid in my head. Stupid and selfish, like I really only came here because I wouldn’t be able to live knowing he killed himself after an argument with me.

And of course it wasn’t that. Of course it wasn’t.

“Meeting you also made me believe I had a chance.” I say without thinking, and he turns to stare at my face. “That life could be enjoyable.”

“Too bad I’m not the one you think I am.” He turns back to the water. “I only lied to you because I knew nothing would ever have happened if I told you the truth.”

“I know.” I mumble.

“Why are you here, Eren?” He sniffs, starting to cry again. “You can go back to your life, just forget about me.”

“I guess I just can’t.”

“Of course you can.” He shakes his head. “You can change your major in college and find what you truly want to study. Then you’ll be successful and you’ll find someone who truly deserves you. Someone who’s not fucked up like me.”

“I love you.” The words slip through my lips, and he turns back to me. “I’m sorry about everything I said yesterday. I’m sorry and I don’t know how I’ll ever make it up to you. But I love you.”

“Why are you saying that?” Tears keep escaping from his eyes.

“Because I spent my entire night thinking about everything, about us, about your lie, what you’ve been through… and I realized your lie doesn’t matter compared to everything we’ve been together. This summer has been such a dream since I met you, and I hopefully want to spend all the other seasons with you.”

Levi breathes in and out, trying to calm down.

“Please come back here.” I beg.

He stays unmoving for a few seconds, thinking.

“Are you sure you still want to stay with me?” He asks. “I’m dirty, wrecked and a liar, and the last thing I need is your pity.”

“I am!” I shout, gripping the fence. “Can’t you tell I really love you? Did you forget all our moments together until now?”

“I didn’t.” He sighs.

“Then come here. Come with me.”

He hesitates a bit before finally moving to stand up. My heart warms in my chest when he looks to me, still crying but hopeful. And he was beautiful.

But then he steps behind and falls.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Without wasting a second I run to leave the bridge and down the street until I got to the riverbank.

“Levi!” I scream my lungs off, running into the water. No reply.

He doesn’t know how to swim.

I keep going into the water until it was too deep, then I dive and go as fast as I can to the middle. I spot his body underwater some meters away from me and head towards him, pulling him out of the water.

“Levi!” I hold him up, but he was blacked out.

I swim back to the riverbank carrying him with me, and we both fall on the land. Levi was turning purple already, and I was a sobbing mess.

“Levi, come back to me.” I start pressing his chest like I learnt in my first aid class. “Breathe, please.”

I bend down to blow in his mouth, and feeling his cold lips against mine makes me sob even more.

“Levi…” I return to press his chest, trying to make the movements as precisely as I could. “Please…”

I blow in his mouth again, but nothing. So I continue, until two times later he starts coughing.

“Oh my god…” I turn him to the side to help him getting the water off his lungs. “Thank goodness, Levi…”

He coughs a lot to exhale all the water. And once he stops, he starts crying.

“Eren…” He grabs my arm.

“I’m here.” I hold his hand and bend down to kiss his face. “I’m here.”

He sits up and we hug. He was still breathing hardly and seemed pretty weak, which made me want to protect him as much as I could from the cold.

“It’s okay, you’re fine.” I repeat, kissing his cheek repeatedly.

“Why did you save me?” He mumbles weakly, coughing. “Just let me die.”

“I won’t, don’t say that. I love you, okay? I swear I do.”

He keeps sobbing and coughing, hugging me strongly. “I don’t deserve your love and I’m never going to.”

“Don’t say that. Just don’t. I love you, alright?”

He pauses for some seconds. “I love you too.” He says in a whisper. “You saved me two times already.”

I kiss his cold lips and he puts his arms around my neck to kiss me strongly. I couldn’t live without him anymore, I really couldn’t.

Only when we calm down I suggest that I take him home. We both manage to stop crying and walk to my bike, shivering from the cold, and head to his house.

We arrive there and find his uncle by the porch, talking on the phone. Once he sees us, he ends the call and walks down the stairs.

“Where have you been?” He walks towards us. “And why the hell are you soaked?”

“It was an accident.” I explain in Levi’s place.

Mr. Ackerman, then, grabs Levi’s arm, dragging him to the house.

“Go home, Eren.” He shouts from the door, before slamming it closed.

The reception was so quick and sudden that I freeze, and when I get back to reality, I slowly walk to the front door. I hear yelling from inside, Levi asking him to stop and Mr. Locksmith calling him all kind of horrible things you could imagine. I wanted to ring the doorbell, I wanted to make it stop. But what could I do? What would I be able to do? I end standing dumbly by the door, hearing those horrible sounds and starting to cry again.

Until I listen to a door being slammed upstairs and realize it was probably from Levi’s room. I walk to the tree beside the house and carefully jump up on it, reaching his window and opening the glass.

Levi jumps behind when he hears the sound. His cheek was red and it would probably turn purple soon.

I make a sign to him to be quiet and walk towards him.

 “Come with me.” I whisper, holding his face with my hands.

“Where?” He asks weakly. “I can’t go anywhere.”

I don’t continue talking and pull him by the hand towards his wardrobe, opening it.

“Grab something. Let’s be quick.”

Still confused, he nods and finds a bag to put some stuff inside. It doesn’t take much, since he didn’t really have much stuff, so soon we’re out of the window and I’m helping him down the tree.

We run to my bike and head to my house.

Luckily getting in my room was much easier, since I could walk into the house by the backdoor and use the service stairway from the laundry room. We get to my room, lock the door and I walk to my wardrobe to grab some clothes.

“Let’s take a shower.” I say, grabbing a towel.

“Won’t your parents see us?” He asks, worried.

“They’re downstairs, don’t worry.”

I look carefully to both sides of the corridor before taking him to the bathroom. We get off out wet clothes and take a warm shower, finally getting rid of the cold water from the river.

I kiss him and he kisses me. And then I realize that nothing really mattered.

Nothing ever mattered.

All that matters is that we were together, that destiny or whatever force of the universe brought us together when we were both broken. When we both needed each other.

Nothing could erase that.

I pull him against the wall and he shivers with the temperature. We kiss again and again, and we only stop to stare at each other’s face.

I really wasn’t ready to stop seeing these blue eyes. His delicate nose, his cute cheeks. His lips.

He notices me staring to them and bites them provocatively. I don’t need to ask what he’s thinking.

So I turn him around carefully and he doesn’t stop me. I kiss his neck and grind my body against his.

“Are you sure?” He whispers softly.

“Yeah.”

I try to be the most careful I can, and Levi doesn’t seem even a bit uncomfortable in any moment. I only think it was because I was gentle and continue, ignoring everything else.

We leave the bathroom some minutes later, looking to both sides again, and lock ourselves in my room. I grab some clothes for us and start filling a bag with some important stuff.

“I have some money saved on my account.” I grab my wallet and take my card of it to put in my pocket. “We can withdraw it at the bus terminal.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” He asks again, eyeing me seriously. I step closer to him and pull him into a kiss.

“Yes, I want to.” I say, looking into his eyes.

I finish grabbing my stuff and we leave again through the window to pick my bike outside. We get on the bus to the terminal and suddenly I start feeling butterflies on my belly. We were doing this.

I withdraw all my money from the bank and stuff half in my pocket and half in Levi’s. He doesn’t say anything and only follows me to the counter to buy the tickets.

“Where to?” The attendant asks.

“Where is the next bus going to?” I reply.

“Well, let me check.” She types something on the computer. “Paris, Illinois.”

We both stare dumbfounded to the attendant. “Is that far?” Levi asks in my place.

“The bus drive lasts around 13 hours.”

We glance at each other’s face, smiling softly.

“This is it. Two tickets to Paris.”

“Sure thing.”

And half an hour later we’re inside a bus, going somewhere we have no idea where it was. But it was Paris, our Paris, finally. I grab Levi’s hand in mine and he cuddles closer to me from his seat.

“I love you.” He mumbles.

“I love you too.”

I’d call my parents later to tell them that I was okay and all, but nothing would make me change my mind.

I had no idea what I wanted from my life, but I knew that since the day I met Levi, I wanted to stay by his side.

And together we’d figure out things, one at a time.

 

**END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I hope you liked how things ended n_n  
> Please look forward to my next fanfictions as well!  
> Thank you all very much for reading and commenting :3


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